Displaying the most recent of 90433 posts written by

Ruth King

MEDIA Comments turned off

New York Times Says Trump Accusing It Of Fake News is Hitlerian Daniel Greenfield

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/12/new-york-times-says-trump-accusing-it-fake-news-daniel-greenfield/

I might say that the New York Times ought to be ashamed, but the paper clearly doesn’t even understand the concept. After launching a defense of Jeremy Corbyn by attacking the UK’s Chief Rabbi who called the radical leftist out for anti-Semitism, the Times, which covered up the Holocaust while it was going on to provide cover for FDR’s inaction, accuses Trump of having adopted ‘fake news’ from Hitler.

Literally. No shame.

As the historian Timothy Snyder has written in The Times, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came up with the slogan “Lügenpresse” — translated as “lying press” — in order to discredit independent journalism. Now the tactic has been laundered through an American president, Donald Trump, who adopted the term “fake news” as a candidate and has used it hundreds of times in office.

Accusing the press of lying did not originate with Hitler. Trump was not studying Nazi slogans. (Though there are alt-righters who use “lugenpresse” because they’re Nazi fans.) Plenty of American politicians have accused the media of being deceptive and dishonest.

David Brock, the Clinton lapdog, made a specialty of it. He even accused the New York Times of being right-wing.

The New York Times knows it’s spouting obscene nonsense. And it doesn’t care.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Censure Rather Than Impeachment Won’t End the Political Divide What concessions to progressive fanatics really accomplish. Bruce Thornton

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/censure-rather-impeachment-wont-end-political-bruce-thornton/

As the House impeachment farce doubles-down on its buffoonery, many voices are calling for an alternative: Don’t impeach, but censure the president. This compromise will end the Dems’ effort to impeach on the basis of second- and third-hand opinion and an Orwellian torture of terms like “bribery,” yet still “send a message” that Trump crossed some line of presidential decorum by asking a foreign head of state to “dig up dirt,” as some pundits call it, on a possible political opponent. Perhaps such a bipartisan gesture will also contribute to ending the stark divisions between the parties, and return us to our bipartisan “democratic norms.”

This “solution,” however, solves nothing, and begs the central question of the whole imbroglio: that the president did something seriously wrong. That claim is not self-evidently true, and should be contested as yet another obsession with Trump’s undiplomatic––i.e. not weaselly––words rather than his actions.

Let’s review the background of the alleged offense. Towards the end of the Obama administration, the issue of Ukraine’s endemic corruption had been raised. Also of concern was Hunter Biden’s cushy job with the corrupt Ukrainian Burisma company, as former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified during the impeachment hearings. Moreover, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik pointed out during her questioning that Yovanovitch was coached by Obama’s people about how Yovanovitch should respond to questions concerning the bad optics of the Bidens’ actions when she testified in her Senate confirmation hearings.

As the Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman reported last month,  Obama administration officials, then, certainly were concerned about the Bidens, and with good cause. For example, a Washington consulting outfit used Biden’s name while requesting a State Department meeting to improve Bursima’s image, explicitly saying that Burisma put Hunter Biden on its board to leverage such meetings. A State Department official who tried to raise a red flag about the Bidens was ignored by a Biden staffer. An Obama Administration’s special envoy for energy policy also expressed concerns to Biden himself, with no results.

Continue reading →
P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The Coercive, Surreptitious Transgender Legal Agenda By Madeleine Kearns

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-coercive-surreptitious-transgender-legal-agenda/

James Kirkup has an important piece over at the Spectator, looking at how transgenderism has “taken hold in so many places so swiftly.”

Kirkup examines a document produced by Dentons, an organization that describes itself as the world’s biggest law firm. The document, entitled “Only adults? Good practices in legal gender recognition for youth,” is “a handbook written by an international law firm and backed by one of the world’s biggest charitable foundations,” according to Kirkup.

In relation to gender laws and policies targeting children, Kirkup highlights some quotes from the document.

It is recognized that the requirement for parental consent or the consent of a legal guardian can be restrictive and problematic for minors.

States should take action against parents who are obstructing the free development of a young trans person’s identity in refusing to give parental authorization when required.

While cultural and political factors play a key role in the approach to be taken, there are certain techniques that emerge as being effective in progressing trans rights in the “good practice” countries.

Continue reading →
P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

When Will Transgender Clinical Activists Acknowledge Detransitioners? By Madeleine Kearns

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/when-will-transgender-clinical-activists-acknowledge-detransitioners/

British media coverage has increased the visibility of people who change their mind about sex change. But they exist in America, too.

In the United Kingdom, there has been increased media attention on “detransitioners” — people who identify with their natal sex after a period of being “transgender” through social, medical, or surgical “transition.”

A recent BBC documentary opens with the story of Debbie, who was “born a girl, assigned female at birth, and lived most of her life this way.” (Of course, she wasn’t “assigned” female, she was observed female, but never mind.)

At age 44, Debbie transitioned medically, taking testosterone, which gave her a beard and made her go bald. She then transitioned surgically, having flesh from her arm grafted to construct a pseudo-penis. Debbie told the BBC that she got the idea about being transgender after watching TV coverage of trans people: “It was like a Eureka. I thought, This is me. This is what I’ve got to do.” Debbie had struggled with many issues and had been sexually abused as a child.

She hoped that changing gender would help her “become a different person” as well as “accepted in the world.” However, after 17 years on testosterone and changing her name to Lee, and after having had “multiple procedures,” she realized she had made a mistake:

I remember breaking down. It was like this was a mistake. It should never have happened. But what the hell do you do about it? How do you go through yet another harrowing transition? What do you do? I’ve got no hair. I’ve got a beard. I’ve had all my body mutilated. How the hell do I go back to being the Debbie that I was?

Another British woman, Charlie Evans, who formerly identified as a man, has set up a charity to help people who are detranistioning. Evans told the BBC she has been overwhelmed by the number of people coming forward. “There are thousands of us,” Evans says. “A lot of these women feel that they were not in a position to give informed consent because they were so unwell.”

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Brown University committee on corporate responsibility votes in favor of BDS

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://www.jns.org/brown-university-committee-on-corporate-responsibility-votes-in-favor-of-bds/
 
The vote occurred months after students voted overwhelmingly in favor of a referendum, calling on the school to separate itself from companies that conduct business with Israel.

The Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP) at Brown University in Providence, R.I., voted on Monday in favor of the BDS movement that aims to boycott Israel.

The final tally of the committee was six in favor, two against and one abstention.

The ACCRIP, which consists of university students, faculty, staff and alumni, vote on resolutions surrounding “ethical and moral issues or issues of alleged social harm with respect to the activities of corporations in which the University is an investor,” according to its website.

The resolution consisted of the following language:

“We recommend that the Brown Corporation exclude from Brown’s direct investments, and require Brown’s separate account investment managers to exclude from their direct investments, companies identified as facilitating human rights violations in Palestine. In addition, the Investment Office will share with all investment managers the University’s desire to adhere to this investment philosophy. We recommend that the Corporation and Brown’s separate account investment managers maintain the withdrawal of investments from said companies until they cease to engage in social harm … ”

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Meet With Terrorist-Run Pay-To-Slay Group By Benjamin Baird

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/02/democratic-presidential-hopefuls-meet-with-terrorist-run-pay-to-slay-group/

Why did Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders meet with a legal advocacy group founded by a convicted terrorist and that functions as a de facto ‘martyrs fund’ for American jihadists?

“There’s no other conference like this,” the Coalition for Civil Freedoms (CCF) claimed ahead of its ninth annual Family Conference and Lobby Day in Washington D.C. last month. You can say that again.

CCF is a legal advocacy and support group founded by a convicted terrorist that functions as a de facto “martyrs fund” for American jihadists and their families. Would-be suicide bombers, terrorism financiers, and jihadist recruiters can rest easy knowing that CCF will pay their prison commissary and provide for their families should they end up on the wrong side of the law.

However, this “pay-to-slay” program doesn’t seem to alarm a handful of U.S. lawmakers and their staff — including the office of Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who welcomed CCF to Capitol Hill on October 28 and lent a sympathetic ear to this terrorist fan club and lobby group.

CCF spent three days grooming terrorist next-of-kin on how to effectively lobby Congress, before parading this delegation through the Capitol Building to meet with U.S. lawmakers and propose legislation. The Entrapment and Government Overreach (EGO) Rel͏i͏ef Act would deprive law enforcement of some of the most effective prosecutorial tools at their disposal, effectively prohibiting the use of undercover informants and decriminalizing material support for terrorism.

But that’s not the worst of it. “If the EGO bill passes, it may be possible to bring many, if not most, preemptive cases back into court to be reevaluated under the new standards imposed by EGO,” said Leena Al-Arian, CCF associate director and the daughter of CCF founder and President Sami Al-Arian.

Al-Arian has a personal stake in reversing terrorism convictions. He pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiring “to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a Specially Designated Terrorist.” The former University of South Florida professor was later deported to Turkey, where he gave a speech in a 2018 calling the United States “our enemy.” Qatar, which consistently offers a haven to terrorist leaders from Hamas and the Taliban, continues to provide the elder Al-Arian a platform to demonize Israel and the West.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

VIDEO: THE BARBARIANS ARE AMONG US: PROFESSOR JASON HILL

By on December 3rd, 2019

This new edition of The Glazov Gang features Dr. Jason D. Hill, a professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of several books, including We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to the American People. Follow him on Twitter: @JasonDhill6.

Jason Hill Video: The Barbarians Are Among Us.
And bleeding us to death – with thousands of tiny scratches.

https://jamieglazov.com/2019/12/02/jason-hill-video-the-barbarians-are-among-us/

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Transgender Palestinian living in Tel Aviv attacked in Ramallah

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Transgender-Palestinian-living-in-Tel-Aviv-attacked-in-Ramallah-609670

Sami, a transgender Palestinian originally from Hebron, who now lives in Tel Aviv, was severely beaten on Monday afternoon in Kfar Aqab, a village close to Ramallah.

Sami and his friend were able to escape after reaching the Kalandia checkpoint, not before the youth damaged his car and destroyed much of its exterior body.Because of his transgender identity, Sami was kicked out his home by his family, later gaining refuge in Tel Aviv. The circumstances surrounding the incident are still unclear.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The shame of Labour’s liberal supporters Stephen Daisley

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2019/12/the-moderates-who-turn-a-blind-eye-to-jeremy-corbyns-anti-semitism/

Last week, Richard Evans, the eminent historian of Nazi Germany whose testimony was a deciding factor in the trial of the Holocaust denier David Irving, announced on Twitter that he would be voting for Labor in the UK’s upcoming election. Evans offered the caveat that “the failure to deal with anti-Semitism in the party makes me very angry”—but wasn’t enough to change his vote. Since then, spurred in part by an open letter from the historian Anthony Julius, Evans has evidently changed his mind. But, writes Stephen Daisley, his original position is all too typical of many of Labor’s moderate supporters:

[T]he Corbyn moment, counterintuitively, is not the story of far-left anti-Semitism but of liberal collaboration, of those who know in their gut this is wrong but deploy a series of strategies to avoid, minimize, invert, excuse, and deny what is happening. Extremists have always believed these things, but liberals have made it acceptable to air them within the mainstream.

There is a nexus of complicity among anti-Semites, their defenders and amplifiers, and those who fail to resist [what Ruth Wisse has termed] “the organization of politics against the Jews.” It includes those who, though awake to the evils of anti-Semitism, will still vote, campaign, and stand for an institutionally anti-Semitic party. Some rationalize this as acting for the greater good—securing more money for the vulnerable or an end to cruel cuts in benefits. In doing so, they define the good as something greater than mere comfort and security for Jews and juxtapose, in telling ways, Jews’ welfare and that of the poor.

This nexus rests on two instincts: one fundamental to Labor politics and the other an import from progressive identity theory. The Labor impulse is home to a burning certainty that politics is a struggle between good and evil in which one side is the Elect and the other demonic. This is why Labor supporters have vilified Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis’s [wholly unprecedented decision to write an article condemning Labor]. Can’t he see Labor is on the side of the angels and the Tories are foot soldiers of wickedness? If not, it must be because he, too, is from the ranks of the reprobates.

The other conviction, born of the Jew-exclusionary theories of racism that took hold in the universities in the 1980s and on the broader left more recently, is that anti-Semitism is a lesser form of racism because Jews are beneficiaries of “white privilege.” . . . [I]ntersectionality only intersects with Jews on its own terms.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Impasse Obstructing U.S.-Israel Relations, and How to Remedy It In some ways, the two countries have never been closer, but in others, and notably with regard to China, they’ve never seemed farther apart.Arthur Herman

By on December 3rd, 2019

https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel-zionism/2019/12/the-impasse-obstructing-u-

The strategic relationship between the U.S. and Israel has reached a strange impasse. In important ways, thanks in particular to initiatives by the Trump administration, the two countries have never been closer. In other ways, however, they have never seemed farther apart. This is notably the case with regard to relations with China, America’s most important geopolitical competitor.

A year ago in Mosaic, I detailed Israel’s increasing ties to China and the chill those ties might bring to the longstanding U.S.-Israel strategic partnership. That essay, entitled “Israel and China Take a Leap Forward—but to Where?” spelled out the dramatic expansion in Israel-China trade, with Israeli companies investing heavily in the Chinese market and China buying up large sections of Israel’s technology sector, especially in areas critical to future advanced-weapons systems. It also noted how U.S. officials, and even some Israeli security experts, were disturbed by the extent and potential direction of this relationship and its possibly deleterious effect on Israel’s security cooperation with the United States. In the words of one American observer whom I quoted:

The Pentagon is increasingly worried that artificial-intelligence capabilities acquired by Chinese firms through civilian investments or licensing deals could find their way into a new generation of Chinese weapons that would threaten American troops and American allies.

Continue reading →