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Ruth King

The Free Beacon Did Not ‘Correct’ My Record Carter Page, not the Beacon, is the victim. To portray it any other way only adds to the outrage. Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/19/the-free-beacon-did-not-correct-my-record/

On Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh shared with his listeners a portion of my article detailing the way the Washington Free Beacon helped launch the character assassination of Carter Page. Citing information originating with the Free Beacon itself and new revelations contained in the book authored by the owners of Fusion GPS, here’s the gist: Glenn Simpson contacted a “longtime Republican politico” in August 2015 to pitch his anti-Trump project. According to Simpson’s book (p. 15), the next month, that politico informed Simpson that the Washington Free Beacon would hire Fusion for $50,000 per month to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. (Simpson also confirmed in his congressional testimony that Fusion’s “flat fee” for that type of work.)

That relationship lasted until January 2017—a fact that the Free Beacon originally attempted to conceal—and the Beacon posted the first known hit piece on Carter Page on March 23, 2016. The Free Beacon, according to widespread reporting, is backed by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who opposed Trump’s candidacy in 2016.

Let me back up here: My readers know that I have been a big defender of Carter Page. I have interviewed him several times and wrote a piece in June 2018 referring to Page as the biggest victim of the collusion hoax. Now that Page has been cleared and the American public knows how Barack Obama’s FBI spied on him for a year, anyone who participated in the character assassination of Page should apologize. Further, as I argue in my article, any “conservative” outlet that published hit pieces on Page should retract their attacks and apologize to him. We now know that the lies told about Page originated with Fusion GPS and were part of an anti-Trump propaganda campaign.

But the Free Beacon, instead of doing the right thing, is continuing to defend themselves. In an email to Rush, Michael Goldfarb, the Free Beacon’s founding chairman, attempted to refute my article. Rush read Goldfarb’s full response on-air Wednesday; it is posted on Rush’s website.

Friendship in the Aftermath of Reality A report from the UK. Christopher Gage

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/19/friendship-in-the-aftermath-of-reality/

I’ve worn my thumbs down to spiky bone. To be a good sport, over the last week I have given traumatized progressives exactly what they want. I’ve dutifully succumbed to the commands of the mad, the demands of the jilted.

“If you voted for Boris Johnson, delete me as a friend!” Because of X and Y and perhaps Z.

The social impeachment charge sheet extends from the fantastical to the absurd. Those selfish so-and-sos scotched Jeremy Corbyn’s Winter Wonderland, and ushered in fascism.

So, in true Christmas spirit, I have obliged heartily the shouty demands of authoritarian narcissists, and self-deported from their digital encampments so disfigured a reality to the one they deplore.

A queasy insight into the minds of some. Sharpened by the interrobang, such gentle requests litter my social media feeds.

Of course, it is the usual suspects. “Hang your heads in shame!” cried the green of bangs, and steel of nose. Which is ever so charming, not to mention convincing.

Democracy, of course, counts only when they win.

Given last week’s drubbing (which I have taken the liberty to christen “LOL Thursday”) it’ll be a while before they taste anything so syrupy sweet as the first seven seconds when I awake and it breaks across my head that they don’t matter anymore.

Nope. They do not. And It’s not you. It really is them.

Democrats’ Diversity Blues The party’s leadership class cares much more about identity politics than its voting base does. Kay S. Hymowitz

https://www.city-journal.org/democrats-identity-politics

“It’s not the first time, and probably won’t be the last, that the Democratic political class has failed to heed the message that those who live by identity politics often die by identity politics.”

The top Democratic candidates will soon take the stage at the next debate, and oh boy, are party leaders squirming. Up until late last week, when Andrew Yang made the cutoff by a hair, all six of those making their pitch were white—#debatesowhite, as the hashtag called it. Worse yet, half of those Caucasians are old enough to be carrying Medicare cards. As Frank Bruni wrote in last week’s Sunday column, “for a party that celebrates diversity, pitches itself to underdogs and prides itself on being future-minded and youth-oriented, that’s a freaky, baffling turn of events.”

Some blamed the freaky turn on billionaire money crowding out the merely rich little guys, while others pointed a finger at the DNC for a dysfunctional qualifying system and a primary calendar privileging Iowa and New Hampshire, both largely white states. Also popular is the theory of “electability”—if voters’ top priority is nominating someone who can beat Donald Trump, white old-timers seem like the safest bet. But the facts behind #debatesowhite suggest that, despite the best efforts of progressives and the party establishment to hype 2020 candidates in terms of their race, gender, and LGBTQ status, the Democratic rank-and-file have limited use for identity politics.

Remember that the Dems started the year with a historically diverse field: two blacks, an Asian, a Hispanic, and an out gay man. In the following months, a sizable cluster of women joined the fray. Finally, Americans would see a field that “looked like America.” Yet 12 months later, all the nonwhite candidates—except Yang, who has explicitly disavowed identity politics—are either going or gone. Even Kamala Harris, whose Jamaican father and Indian mother made her intersectionally intersectional—black, Asian, female, and immigrant to boot—will not be standing in front of a podium.

The End of a Jewish Presence in Europe? by Guy Millière

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15293/antisemitism-france-europe

“Although Jews represent less than one percent of the population, half of the racist acts committed in France are committed against Jews.” — French Member of Parliament Meyer Habib.

Anti-Semitism is advancing throughout the continent and often has a Middle Eastern cast. Yet, the authorities also talk only about right-wing anti-Semitism.

Leftist anti-Semitism is present all over Europe. Its followers, as in France, do their best to hide and protect Middle Eastern anti-Semitism.

The demographic transformation taking place in France is also happening throughout Western Europe, and the growing submission to Islam is being silently accepted by the ruling authorities almost everywhere.

On December 3, the French National Assembly passed a resolution adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism. The resolution stressed that the definition “encompasses manifestations of hatred toward the State of Israel justified solely by the perception of the latter as a Jewish collective.” MP Meyer Habib, who supported the resolution, delivered a passionate and poignant speech, highlighting the extent of the anti-Semitic threat in today’s France, and the close links between hatred of the Jews and hatred toward Israel:

“Since 2006, twelve French people have been murdered in France because they were Jewish. Although Jews represent less than one percent of the population, half of the racist acts committed in France are committed against Jews. Anti-Zionism is an obsessive demonization of Israel and an abuse of anti-racist and anti-colonial rhetoric to deprive the Jews of their identity.”

He added that getting the votes to pass the resolution was extremely difficult because of a general lack of “political courage” — sadly, a quality often absent in France when it comes to anti-Semitism and Israel.

French political leaders often declare that fighting against anti-Semitism is of utmost importance; they say it every time a Jew is murdered in the country. The only anti-Semitism they seem ready to fight, however, is right-wing anti-Semitism. They seemingly refuse to see that all the Jews killed or assaulted in France since 2006 were victims of Muslim anti-Semites — and French political leaders never utter a word about it. They appear to hide Islamic anti-Semitism — embedded in the Qur’an and Hadiths and reinforced in the 1930s by the Nazis’ friendship with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini — under a Muslim hatred of the Jews based on a supposedly “legitimate” Muslim hatred of ‘Zionist crimes'”.

French political leaders also seemingly refuse to see another form of anti-Semitism that is on the rise: leftist anti-Semitism. It is precisely this leftist anti-Semitism that uses the mask of anti-Zionism to spread anti-Jewish hatred.

TWO COLUMNS ON IMPEACHMENT BY BYRON YORK

In impeachment vote, how Republicans got to zero by Byron York

After rushed and intense proceedings into the Ukraine affair, the House has voted to impeach President Trump. The vote was 230 to 197 for the first article of impeachment charging the president with abuse of power and 229 to 198 for the second article charging him with obstruction of Congress.

For Republicans, the important numbers were zero and zero. Not a single Republican lawmaker voted for either article of impeachment. 

And indeed there were none. 

 

By Byron York

 

The Republican stance didn’t just happen. Scalise has been working for weeks to keep House Republicans up to speed on the rapidly changing issues and positions in the Democratic impeachment drive. It was essential to keeping GOP lawmakers together.

Remember that in the early days, most members of the House were in the dark about what was happening in the proceedings. Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff held depositions in secret, in a secure room in the Capitol, and only members of the Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs committees were allowed to attend. Together, that is only 47 Republicans out of 197 GOP members of the House. A total of 150 Republicans had no access to anything.

War Memorials: Do Nazi or Islamist Soldiers Qualify? The relevance of context. Howard Rotberg

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/war-memorials-do-nazi-or-islamist-soldiers-qualify-howard-rotberg/

In our war memorials and our remembrance holidays, whom do we honor and why?

On November 17th, reporter Jeff Outhit of the Waterloo (Kitchener-Waterloo Ontario Canada) Record, wrote about German Remembrance Day, which takes place in Kitchener, a day or so after Canadian Remembrance Day. The German Remembrance Day takes place in a section of Woodland Cemetery where about 137 Nazi soldiers and about 50 soldiers from the First World War are buried.

Apparently the bodies of the Nazi soldiers and others who died during their detention in Canada during World War 2 were moved from cemeteries near the facilities where they were kept to all be re-buried in Kitchener, known for its large number of German immigrants, especially in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Mr. Outhit writes that “It’s no small thing to see former enemies mourned.” He states that a crowd came to remember their sacrifice, to honor all who are victims of war, and to reflect on how to stop it from happening again.”

The reporter talked to three young people, of German heritage, who attended the ceremony.

“It’s very moving to have all of us be able to get together, and pay our respects,” said one. Another was struck by how the ceremony aims to remember not just the fighters but also the civilians who perished.

Why Yasmine Mohammed’s ‘Unveiled’ Is a Must-Read Buy a copy for yourself — and one for your leftist Islam-apologist friend.Danusha V. Goska

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/yasmine-mohammeds-unveiled-must-read-danusha-v-goska/

“My whole body was suffocating. My head throbbed, and my skin oozed sweat from every pore … dressing like the kuffar was evil. I would go to hell if I dressed that way … when the Caliphate rises, if you’re not wearing hijab, how will you be distinguished from the nonbelievers? If you look like them, you’ll be killed like them … wearing a niqab [face veil] you feel like you’re in a portable sensory deprivation chamber. It impedes your ability to see, hear, touch, smell. I felt like I was slowly dying inside … I didn’t even know who I was anymore – if I even was somebody at all.”

Yasmine Mohammed is a spitfire, a term once applied both to World-War-II-era combat aircraft and to superstars like Jane Russell who played hotblooded women who didn’t let anyone push them around. Yasmine is a forty-something Canadian ex-Muslim, atheist, educator, and activist. (I’m going against convention here and referring to the author by her first name. She shares a last name with Islam’s prophet and founder, and I want to avoid confusion.)

Yasmine was raised by a strict Muslim mother who was the second wife of an equally strict stepfather. She was in an arranged marriage to an Al-Qaeda member. She left Islam and she is now married to a non-Muslim. Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam is her first book. And what a first book it is. Unveiled is a can’t-put-it-down instant classic. Authors Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, Kate McCord, Jean Sasson, Nawal el-Saadawi, and Phyllis Chesler, move over. There is a new star in your literary firmament.

The Ins and Outs of Delaying a Senate Impeachment Trial What the Dems are up to — and what the Constitution says about it. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/delay-senate-impeachment-trial-joseph-klein/

After her Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump Wednesday night, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she might just wait awhile before sending the articles over to the Senate for trial. “We will make our decision as to when we are going to send it when we see what they are doing on the Senate side,” Speaker Pelosi said. “So far, we have not seen anything that looks fair to us.” The House Democrats want the Senate to call the witnesses who House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler failed to call during their sham hearings. In their rush to impeach, they were too impatient to wait for a court decision compelling the witnesses to testify.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded Thursday morning to the House’s impeachment process and the latest delay tactics.  He said that “House Democrats may be too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate.” In a further dig, the Senate Majority Leader added, “Looks like the prosecutors are getting cold feet.” He noted that the same Democrats who stressed the urgency of impeaching President Trump immediately now seem “content to sit on their hands.”

Senator McConnell excoriated “Speaker Pelosi’s House” for conducting “the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.” He charged the Democrats with exhibiting “partisan rage at this particular President,” creating “a toxic new precedent that will echo well into the future.”

The University’s New Loyalty Oath Required ‘diversity and inclusion’ statements amount to a political litmus test for hiring.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-universitys-new-loyalty-oath-11576799749?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Seventy years ago the University of California introduced a loyalty oath, requiring employees to swear they were “not a member of the Communist Party.” After a contentious period in which 31 faculty were fired for refusing to sign, the requirement was reconsidered. An eventual consequence was the current Standing Order of the Regents 101.1(d): “No political test shall ever be considered in the appointment and promotion of any faculty member or employee.” This is a statement of principle. No one will be denied a position at the University of California based on political beliefs. No communist, no conservative, no progressive, no liberal.

Now the university appears to be abandoning this principle. In the past few years “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” statements, in which applicants for faculty positions profess their commitment to these social goals, have become required on eight UC campuses and at colleges across the country. These requirements are promoted as fulfilling worthy goals: to help redress the historic exclusion of underrepresented groups, to ensure that candidates from all backgrounds apply for and are given fair consideration for faculty jobs, and to make sure faculty respect and support all students in their teaching and mentoring.

There are many constructive ways to pursue these admirable aims. For example, professors can reach out to underrepresented communities at every level. We can enact family-friendly policies that help young faculty balance family life with jobs. We can encourage students from all backgrounds to explore and succeed in academic careers.

Pelosi Has Second Thoughts McConnell should hold a trial with or without House managers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pelosi-has-second-thoughts-11576802073?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The House impeachment of President Trump is only a day old and it has already moved from folly to farce. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now threatening to withhold the articles of impeachment that Democrats just passed until the Senate sets trial terms that she and her left-wing faction deem adequate.

“We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side,” Mrs. Pelosi said Wednesday night after the impeachment vote, referring to the House Members who would present the case for removal to the Senate. “So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us.”

The Constitution gives the House “the sole power of impeachment.” It also gives the Senate “the sole power to try all impeachments.” Mrs. Pelosi nonetheless wants to use the articles the House has passed as leverage to force the Senate to do what she wants. The idea was floated this week by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe and has been picked up on the left, apparently as a way to discomfit Senate Republicans.

This further trivializes the impeachment power that the Pelosi Democrats have already done so much to diminish. The House raced to an impeachment vote to please swing-district Members who wanted it over before Christmas. Democrats barred GOP witnesses and truncated questioning. Rep. Adam Schiff even said speed was essential and the House couldn’t wait for court rulings on witnesses, lest Mr. Trump steal the 2020 election.

But now Mrs. Pelosi says speed isn’t essential because Senate Republicans might not hold the kind of trial she wants. She is running interference for Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, who is demanding that the Senate call witnesses the House refused to call. The goal seems to be to turn the Senate trial into a second impeachment investigation ad infinitum. Keep the machinery running, and who knows what else might turn up that pressures Republicans to convict.