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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

New Law Will Prohibit NY Judges From Jailing Armed Suspects Who Resist Arrest Holly Matkin 

By on December 12th, 2019

https://defensemaven.io/bluelivesmatter/news/new-law-will-prohibit-ny-judges-from-jailing-armed-suspects-who-resist-arrest-yaX0r7GzQEGrM-qb9QkuLA/

New York lawmakers eliminated cash bail for many violent offenses beginning January 1, 2020.

New York, NY – Under the City of New York’s so-called justice reforms, suspects will no longer be held in jail for carrying weapons beginning in January.

Offenders found in possession of a wide array of weapons – including guns, switchblades, swords, machetes, and stun guns – will instead be issued a “desk appearance ticket” and “set free,” the New York City Police Benevolent Association (PBA) pointed out in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

Lawmakers also eliminated cash bail for hundreds of other criminal charges.

“This law starts on Jan. 1st for ALL of New York, not just New York City,” the PBA noted in another post.

On Nov. 19, Queens Senior Executive Assistant District Attorney James Quinn released a complete list of the offenses that judges will no longer be able to set bail for.

“Under the new bail laws…Judges in New York State cannot set bail on any of the following crimes (and most attempts to commit these crimes), and must release the defendant on non-monetary conditions, regardless of criminal record, ties to the community or previous bench warrants on other cases,” Quinn wrote.

The list stretched on for four pages, and included offenses such as stalking, arson, resisting arrest, money laundering in support of terrorism, rioting, vehicular assault, unlawful imprisonment, negligent homicide, and a slew of drug-related charges.

Criminal offenses against children, including child abuse, promoting child prostitution, facilitating female genital mutilation, and possessing or promoting a sexual performance by a child will also be treated with a mandatory release.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Cost of America’s Cultural Revolution Social-justice crusaders are stripping the future of everything that gives human life meaning: beauty, sublimity, and wit. Heather Mac Donald

By on December 12th, 2019

https://www.city-journal.org/social-justice-ideology

Social-justice ideology is turning higher education into an engine of progressive political advocacy, according to a new report by the National Association of Scholars. Left-wing activists, masquerading as professors, are infiltrating traditional academic departments or creating new ones—departments such as “Solidarity and Social Justice”—to advance their cause. They are entering the highest rung of college administration, from which perch they require students to take social-justice courses, such as “Native Sexualities and Queer Discourse” or “Hip-hop Workshop,” and attend social-justice events—such as a Reparations, Repatriation, and Redress Symposium or a Power and Privilege Symposium—in order to graduate.

But social-justice education is merely a symptom of an even deeper perversion of academic values: the cult of race and gender victimology, otherwise known as “diversity.” The diversity cult is destroying the very foundations of our civilization. It is worth first exploring, however, why social-justice education is an oxymoron.

Why shouldn’t an academic aspire to correcting perceived social ills? The nineteenth-century American land-grant universities and the European research universities were founded, after all, on the premise that knowledge helps society progress. But social justice is a different beast entirely. When a university pursues social justice, it puts aside its traditional claim to authority: the disinterested search for knowledge. We accord universities enormous privileges. Their denizens are sheltered from the hurly-burly of the marketplace on the assumption that they will pursue truth wherever it will take them, unaffected by political or economic pressures. The definition of social justice, however, is deeply political, entailing a large number of contestable claims about the causes of socioeconomic inequality. Social-justice proponents believe that those claims are settled, and woe to anyone who challenges them on a college campus. There are, however, alternative explanations—besides oppression and illegitimate power—for ongoing inequalities, taboo though they may be in academia.

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran fills the Vacuum Created by Trump’s Withdrawal by Con Coughlin

By on December 12th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15271/iran-vacuum-trump-withdrawal

President Trump has hastened the withdrawal of American forces from Syria, and is actively seeking to reduce America’s military presence elsewhere in the region, with troop withdrawals under active consideration in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Russia is always on standby to fill power voids. That is how it happened that Russian troops swept in when the US left northern Syria. To sum up that still unfolding story: nobody will remember it as our finest hour.”

“There are some deeply malign forces at work in the broader Middle East…disengagement is just another term for leaving all the power to them.” – Richard Cheney, Former US Vice President,” Arab Strategy Forum, Dubai.

It is a measure of the failure of the nuclear deal with Iran that former US President Barack Obama helped to negotiate in 2015 that Tehran used the brief easing of tensions with Washington to strengthen and consolidate its military presence in Arab countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

There are now serious concerns that Mr Trump’s desire to reduce America’s military presence in the Middle East will only encourage Iran to intensify its own activity, thereby increasing the threat to Israel and pro-Western Arab states.

The problem for small states such as Lebanon, though, is that they are no match for a regional superpower like Iran. And so long as the mullahs have the resources and weaponry to maintain their aggressive presence in the region, there is very little that small states like Lebanon can do to stop them.

The threat by a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps this week “to flatten Tel Aviv” from Iranian-controlled bases in southern Lebanon provides arguably the most graphic example of the deepening dangers the region faces as a result of the Trump administration’s decision to scale down its military presence.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Is NATO Still Vital? by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on December 12th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15265/is-nato-still-vital

Many additional countries who joined the alliance — such as Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States, which had been Soviet satellites — still consider post-Communist Russia an extremely disquieting potential threat. That is just one issue that has created friction among NATO nations….

The larger question [is] the degree to which enemy countries perceive NATO as a unified organization that would respond militarily to aggression against any member state — a crucial psychological factor in deterrence.

Its reason for being should not be written off quite yet…

The two-day summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — held in London on December 3-4 to commemorate its 70th anniversary — may have been marked by controversy, but the gathering constituted an important reminder of why the international alliance was established in the first place.

Founded in April 1949 by the United States, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United Kingdom, NATO was a pact created to counter the world’s greatest threat at the time: the Soviet Union and its race for global domination.

At the time, it was clear that all NATO members were dependent on and deferred to American political and military leadership. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, some of the original NATO member states began to seek systems that would protect their particular individual interests.

Germany, for instance, has become Europe’s economic powerhouse, enjoying a favorable balance of trade with the US. France, no longer viewing Russia as an existential threat to the Free World, now seems more motivated to protect NATO’s southern flank from radical Islamic terrorist groups in West Africa, and from mass migration from former French colonies in North Africa.

Meanwhile, many additional countries who joined the alliance — such as Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States, which had been Soviet satellites — still consider post-Communist Russia an extremely disquieting potential threat. That is just one issue that has created friction among NATO nations, particularly with Turkey’s decision to purchase a Russian air defense system. Another internal bone of contention is the failure of some members to reach the minimum defense-spending level of 2% of GDP, a goal established by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

James Comey’s War on America His only loyalty is to himself, at the expense of the country. Julie Kelly

By on December 12th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/11/james-comeys-war-on-america/

James Comey’s investigation into the Trump campaign didn’t just taint candidate Donald Trump right before the 2016 election.

Comey’s exploitation of powerful surveillance tools to entrap Trump campaign aides didn’t just violate U.S. law or agency protocol. Nor did Comey just almost destroy the lives of Carter Page, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and George Papadopoulos among others.

Comey’s presentation of the most outlandish claim in the phony dossier—that the Kremlin had a recording of Trump peeing on Russian prostitutes—to the incoming president of the United States days before he took office didn’t just rattle Trump.

Comey did not just sabotage a presidential candidate, his transition team, and his new administration to remind Donald Trump who’s boss. Comey did not just try to oust a duly-elected president from the Oval Office based on made-up “memos” he wrote to document the president’s alleged criminality.

James Comey didn’t just help launch his pal Robert Mueller’s destructive two-year probe into the imaginary crime of Russian “collusion.”

No, James Comey, in fact, declared war on America.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Time Mag Chooses School-Skipping Brat Over Millions Fighting Oppression in Iran, Venezuela, and Hong Kong Wed Dec 11, 2019 Daniel Greenfield

By on December 12th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/12/time-mag-chooses-school-skipping-brat-over-daniel-greenfield/

Time Mag’s ‘Lefty Cause of the Year” came down to a race between endorsing the removal of President Trump from office or endorsing the destruction of civilization through radical environmentalism. 

In the choice between the particular, the ‘whistleblower’, and the general, environmentalism, Eric Ciaramella lost out to Greta Thunberg.

The moral of the story here is that if you skip school, you cut ahead in line of the guy with an actual career.

Meanwhile the millions of people in Iran, Venezuela, and Hong Kong, fighting for freedom were ignored by the same media that once glamorized Arab Spring Islamist protesters. Christians fighting Communism, starving Venezuelans fighting Socialism, and Persians fighting Shiite theocracy, are not the media’s idea of the kinds of causes it wants to promote.

And so, while sidelining the people risking their lives to fight for freedom, Time decided to honor an obnoxious brat who became an international celebrity for skipping school until civilization is destroyed.

Everyone has their priorities. Especially the media. 

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

What Purpose Does NATO Serve? What U.S. interests does the bloated bureaucracy advance — at our expense? Bruce Thornton

By on December 12th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/what-purpose-does-nato-serve-bruce-thornton/

While the political class obsessed over act two of the House impeachment hearings while normal people ignored them, NATO met in London for an international photo-op and a celebration of the treaty’s 70th anniversary. Nothing of substance happened, and no needed reforms were discussed. Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union made NATO irrelevant, no one can say what strategic purpose this bloated bureaucracy serves, nor how––despite being financed mainly by the U.S––it advances U.S. interests and security.

Of course we were treated to the usual claims that “NATO kept the peace” in Europe during the Cold War, along with the other institutions of the “rules-based international order.” This globalist marketing slogan is hard to credit. The postwar Europeans were in no condition to fight each other, because most had neither the matériel nor the morale to fight with. Nor did NATO keep the Soviets out of Europe: that was accomplished by 70,000 American nuclear warheads and 400,000 American troops. The contributions of European pygmy-militaries to American military capability were in the end comparatively minimal.

Then there were the usual petty squabbles, snarking at President Trump, and bombastic rhetoric about the “world’s oldest military alliance.” The issue of European members’ continuing failure to increase their puny military spending was brought up again. Trump-haters, of course, have used his aggressive lobbying of the Europeans on this score to buttress their claims that he is a dangerous geopolitical ignoramus unschooled in the technical and diplomatic knowledge of the foreign policy establishment and the “interagency consensus” mentioned in act one of the House impeachment hearings––finally, a confession that we do indeed have an unaccountable “managerial elite” that thinks it should run foreign policy rather than their boss, the Chief Executive elected by the people, and the Commander in Chief to whom the Constitution has given this authority.

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EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Pushes Back Against Campus Anti-Semitism Pro-Palestinian thuggery on campus finally gets a rebuke. Robert Spencer

By on December 12th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/trump-pushes-back-against-campus-anti-semitism-robert-spencer/

President Trump made history again on Wednesday, when he signed an executive order authorizing the Department of Education to act against anti-Semitism on American college and university campuses, and making it clear that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal money, “would apply to institutions that traffic in anti-Semitic hate,” that is, virtually every public institution of higher learning in America.

This executive order is long overdue. The Jerusalem Post reported that as far back as 2015, “more than 30 organizations, including Jewish fraternity AEPI, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Zionist Organization of America wrote to University of California regent Bruce D. Varner in July, requesting that substantive measures be taken to combat rising anti-Semitism on UC-affiliated campuses.”

The problem wasn’t restricted to the University of California, either, but nothing was done. And it is virtually inconceivable that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or any presidential hopeful on the scene today would have signed the executive order that Trump signed Wednesday. Trump pointed out that earlier efforts to combat campus anti-Semitism “didn’t get it done,” and declared: “This year, there’s no roadblock.”

There have been roadblocks for years. Campus groups, most notably the notorious Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), have grown increasingly aggressive as the Left has intensified its embrace of opposition to Israel and open anti-Semitism. Jewish students and supporters of Israel on campuses have been shouted down, defamed, vilified, and physically menaced, with only a handful of groups, particularly the David Horowitz Freedom Center, providing any support for those students.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Articles of Impeachment Are Very Weak By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on December 12th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/the-articles-of-impeachment-are-very-weak/

The charges range from insignificant to implausible to inane.

Democrats rolled out two articles of impeachment against President Trump on Tuesday, alleging abuse of power and obstruction.

As noted over the weekend, I had to correct myself when writing that the impeachment inquiry that led to this point was a “rush to judgment.” The judgment was made long ago. The president has been Impeached Man Walking for “The Resistance” since before he took the oath of office. The House proceedings have been a matter of rushing the process until it catches up to a judgment of three years’ standing.

The two impeachment articles were produced by the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), cribbing from the report spearheaded by Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D., Calif.). The abuse-of-power allegation is confined to the Ukraine episode, a kerfuffle that emerged three months ago and was promptly magnified into a scandal. The claim of obstruction relates to the president’s refusal to cooperate with the partisan impeachment inquiry, the outcome of which was foreordained even as Democrats refused for weeks to conduct a vote endorsing it — for fear of antagonizing voters, which, of course, would not be a fear if there were an obvious, egregious impeachable offense.

It was the lack of an identifiable crime that settled Democrats on “abuse of power,” taking advantage of the fact that the Framers did not require a penal offense for impeachment . . . but ignoring the Framers’ caution against an ambiguous standard that would invite politicized impeachments based on trifling misconduct. Here, Democrats say the abuse involves Trump’s converting of presidential power to his “personal political benefit” — recall the mantra of placing “self above country,” which was chanted throughout Monday’s farcical Judiciary Committee hearing (an often catty partisan duel, mainly between staff attorneys, with no testimony from actual fact witnesses).

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Greta Thunberg Is the Perfect Hero for an Unserious Time By David Harsanyi

By on December 12th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/greta-thunberg-is-the-perfect-hero-for-an-unserious-time/

Histrionic, beset by apocalyptic fantasies, and easily exploitable

Who better than a finger-wagging teen bereft of accomplishment, or any comprehension of basic economics or history, to be Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2019? Greta Thunberg’s canonization is a perfect expression of media activism in a deeply unserious time.

Has there ever been a less consequential person picked to be Person of the Year? I doubt it. I mean, Wallis Simpson, 1936’s Person of the Year, got King Edward VIII to abdicate the throne. Thunberg can’t even get you to abdicate your air-conditioning.

These days we celebrate vacuous fire and brimstone. “Greta Thunberg” — the idea, not the girl — is concoction of activists who have increasingly taken to using children as a shield from critical analysis or debate. She’s the vessel of the environmentalist’s fraudulent apocalypticism-as-argument. Her style is emotion and indignation, histrionics and fantasy. She is a teenager, after all.

How dare you attack a poor defenseless child who suffers from Asperger syndrome!

You’ll notice that, on one hand, Thunberg’s champions demand that the world take her Malthusian crusade seriously, and on the other, they feign indignation when you actually do. The argument that young people, because they will inherit the future, are also best equipped to comprehend it is as puerile as any of Greta’s positions.

Perhaps a better question is, What kind of parents, editors, producers, or U.N. officials would thrust a vulnerable child with Asperger, no less, into a complex and contentious debate? I have great sympathy for her. It’s her ideological handlers who have stolen her childhood.

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