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Ruth King

A Real Feminist: Kurdistan’s President Nechirvan Barzani Empowering women and girls in a region of tyranny, misogyny and gender apartheid. Kawyar Shahed Omer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274473/real-feminist-kurdistans-president-nechirvan-kawyar-shahed-omer

As a citizen of Iraqi Kurdistan, I am greatly pleased that not too long ago, Nechirvan Barzani, a strong feminist and advocate for women’s rights, was sworn in as the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s President. When he was Kurdistan’s Prime Minister, I had the honor of working in his media office and the office tasked with rescuing kidnapped Yezidis. There, I witnessed how Barzani is one of the greatest advocates for women’s rights in the Middle East region. I saw how he tirelessly worked to save abducted Yezidi women and girls. I witnessed how he passed legislation that is greatly beneficial for women’s rights.   

Under the leadership of Barzani, Kurdistan amended the Iraqi Personal Status Law, which was used as an excuse to justify honor killings. On top of that, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq ratified Article Eight on the Elimination of Domestic Violence, which outlaws all gender-based violence. As a result of these measures, honor killings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq are considered intentional homicide and due to the changes in the law, the number of honor killings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has significantly decreased since the Kurds received autonomy.

In addition, the Kurdish authorities outlawed all forms of forced marriages and female circumcision, restricted polygamy and reformed the inheritance law in order to guarantee a fair share for females. Furthermore, Barzani also succeeded in having the parliament pass a law stressing that a man cannot marry a second wife without the first wife’s permission. The first wife has to come to the court and sign a document stating that she gives her husband permission to take on a second wife. 

‘No Republican Talking Points!’ Is The New Democrat Talking Point Thomas McArdle

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/08/01/no-republican-talking-points-is-the-new-democrat-talking-point/

It was 10:46 p.m. when Joe Biden finished his closing statement Wednesday night. At 10:50 p.m. the former Vice President was at the edge of the stage with his arm around the Rev. Al Sharpton, the professional demagogue who with his hoaxes and hatemongering has stirred up more racial discord in America than anyone.

And Biden is the “centrist” candidate.

Government dependency, the cause of so much misery, is the air that politicians of the left breathe. Ever-increasing government control is their perennial objective, promising it will solve big problems (often of government making). But it never does.

Democrats talk about “endless wars,” but the problems of poverty and crime President Trump showcased in his explosive tweets about Baltimore must never be solved, so that the left’s war against them never ends.

Despite strides against racism and against lack of economic opportunities for the underclass that were unimaginable in the 1960s, the Democrats running for president in 2020 are more intent on expanding government and worming it into Americans’ lives than some of the most power-hungry tyrants of the past, doing so purportedly to combat the phantom of “systemic racism.”

And so, actual solutions must never be given voice. Which is why during the last two nights we witnessed the bizarre new phenomenon of the Democrats again and again accusing each other of borrowing “Republican talking points” — apparently the worst sin that can be committed.

Policing Your Fellow Democrats’ Speech

Kushner, Jordan, & the Saudi Peace (of the grave) Plan: The Gall of the Hashemites by Gerald A. Honigman

Please allow me to begin with excerpts from an article in Israel National News on 7/31/19 about President Trump’s adviser’s current visit to the Middle East…  

“…President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman on Wednesday for talks on a controversial US plan for Israeli-PA peace. The two discussed ‘efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’…adding Kushner was ‘visiting Jordan on a tour that includes a number of countries in the region’…

Abdullah stressed ‘the need to achieve a just and lasting peace to ensure the establishment of an independent Palestinian state…with east Jerusalem as its capital, living in peace and security alongside Israel’…said any plan should be based on the internationally backed “two-state solution”and in accordance with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative [italics GAH]. The [Arab] initiative called on Israel to withdraw from all land it liberated in1967, in exchange for normalization between all Arab states and Israel. Kushner was accompanied by Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt…” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/266764 

Note the part of the statement above in italics where Abdullah states that any agreement must be based on the 2002 Arab peace initiative. 

What he left out is that initiative also calls for Israel to be inundated by millions of allegedly “returning” Arab refugees, raised on decades of murderous hate. Note that more Jews fled “Arab”/Muslim lands than Arabs who fled in the opposite direction due to a war that over half dozen Arab states launched immediately upon Israel’s rebirth in May 1948. To this day, children are taught, by both Hamas and the PA’s Abbas folks, how to murder Jews in their summer camps, schools, television programs, and elsewhere. The Internet has plenty of references regarding this.

United Nations Singles Out Israel for Violating ‘Women’s Rights’ By William Z. Nardi

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/united-nations-singles-out-israel-for-violating-womens-rights/

The United Nations economic and social council recently singled out Israel for violating women’s rights by a vote of 40–2 with nine abstentions and three countries absent.

The resolution criticized Israel for posing a “major obstacle” for Palestinian women “with regard to their advancement, self-reliance, and integration in the development of their society,” UN Watch reported.

The Council then resolved Israel should address these issues by complying with the 1994 agreement signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): fully opening Palestinian access to border crossings in the Gaza Strip, as well as restoring and replacing “civilian property, vital infrastructure, agricultural lands and government institutions that have been damaged or destroyed due to its military operations,” according to a UN press release.

Iran, Saudia Arabia, Yemen and Pakistan were among the 54-nation committee which proposed the resolution — all countries that have seen their fair share of criticism for human-rights abuses.

“It amazes me how the U.N. condones votes like these. It is a total mockery of human rights to allow Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Yemen to name Israel as the world’s only violator of women’s rights,” wrote Nikki Haley, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, on Twitter.

Cory Booker Uses the Word ‘Sh**holes’ to Describe Migrant Countries and No One Cares By Megan Fox

https://pjmedia.com/trending/cory-booker-calls-migrant-countries-shholes-and-no-one-cares/

I thought I hallucinated during the interminably long and boring Democrat debate part deux last night and heard Cory Booker proclaim that some home countries of migrants coming to America are “sh**holes.” But it turns out he really said that. When chastising Joe Biden for suggesting we should encourage immigration when those people have something to offer us, Booker said, “That’s playing into what Republicans want — to pit some immigrants against other immigrants. Some are from sh**hole countries and some are from working countries.”

Booker’s camp is claiming he was quoting the president, and maybe so, but it sure seems like he’s accepting the premise that some countries are less than ideal.

And why, if that statement is so offensive, would he continue to repeat it? Maybe he was dunking on the president, but it sounded like he was stating it as fact. If he was joking he needs a better joke writer.

Gabbard Calls Harris’s Flailing Response to Attacks ‘Pathetic’ By Stephen Kruiser

https://pjmedia.com/trending/gabbard-calls-harriss-flailing-response-to-attacks-pathetic/

By almost every measure, and in every wrap-up, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) had a rough second debate. One of the biggest thorns in her side was Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who stayed focused on kicking Harris while she was down the day after the debate.

As I mentioned in my wrap-up of the debate last night, the whole thing was set up for Harris to have a huge, breakout performance. Instead, her voice was shaky and she was on the defensive all night, even though the majority of the attacks were aimed at former Vice President Joe Biden (D-Del.).

For most of the evening, Harris came off as a snooty, popular high school girl who had never been criticized to her face before.

Combat veteran Gabbard went straight for Harris’s greatest weaknesses: her record as San Francisco’s district attorney and then as California’s attorney general, both of which have been attacked by progressives.

The best Harris has been able to come up with to defend herself thus far is to note that she is polling better than Gabbard. That is obviously true but, as a GOP strategist told the Washington Post, it shows “that when cornered, she doesn’t perform very well.”

Seizing what may be her only moment in the primary spotlight, Gabbard was far less charitable.

The Big Loser Was Barack Obama The former president so closely tied to front runner Joe Biden saw much of his legacy thrown under the bus. By David Marcus

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/01/the-big-loser-in-last-nights-debate-was-barack-obama/

The biggest loser in the Democratic presidential primary debate was not on the stage. It was former president Barack Obama. Throughout the night, as rivals challenged Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president and current frontrunner, it took the form of blistering attacks on the Obama administration over immigration, criminal justice, and even his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

Part of this is simply the inevitable consequence of Biden, with a big lead in the polls, being everyone’s most natural target. While it’s true he has decades of political life to take aim at, his last significant political position was serving as Obama’s number two for eight years. Conceding that he and his boss did a bang-up job in the White House goes a long way towards conceding this current race to him. But last night we saw that won’t happen without a fight.

The issue is actually far deeper than electoral calculations. In the just more than a decade since Obama first sat in the Oval Office, the Democratic Party has careened to the left like a sports car with a blown tire making a pass on the Autobahn. Last night’s debates saw defenses of socialism, calls to essentially open the borders, free money for everyone, and plans for government-controlled health care with a price tag longer than a CVS receipt.

On immigration, Biden was slammed by both Cory Booker and Bill de Blasio over Obama’s extremely high number of deportations and Biden’s argument that the United States should be selective about who it lets into the country. Biden struggled to defend the so called “deporter in chief,” arguing basically that Obama made a good start with the now defunct DREAM Act allowing younger people brought here illegally a path to citizenship, but beyond that was stymied by GOP control of the House.

On criminal justice reform, it was also Booker trying to take aim at the former vice president, who argued that since 2007, which includes his entire term as vice president, he had work to eliminate discrepancies in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine, among other things.

Baltimore’s Homicide Rate Is So High, Residents Could Claim U.S. Asylum If They Weren’t Americans By Ellie Bufkin

People have long misunderstood and misrepresented Baltimore, my cherished hometown, but much of what President Donald Trump said this past weekend about Charm City was right on the nose. The president categorized Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” which sparked ire among his always-vocal choir of critics but offered no untrue information.

The president was responding to longtime Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, whose district includes Baltimore, who had issued an incendiary attack on acting Department of Homeland Security head Kevin McAleenan for conditions on the U.S. southern border. Cummings yelled at McAleenan during a House Oversight hearing, claiming he possessed an “empathy deficit” about migrant families at the border.

An Unfiltered Look

Disparaging remarks about Baltimore are not new. Politicians, celebrities, and even residents of the city have easily mocked the soaring crime rate, rodent infestation, and never-ending parade of local government scandals. The three most recently departed mayors have left in disgrace. One was convicted of fraud that involved stealing gift cards from needy families, and another is under active investigation for embezzling government funds.

A local Baltimore Fox affiliate even attempted to shine a light on their own problem in 2018 using an “unfiltered” look at the city with recently ousted Mayor Catherine Pugh. “Whoa, you can smell the rats,” Pugh said during the program as a camera crew followed her around the streets of the decaying city.

Trump critics, of course, called him a “racist” for shifting the spotlight from the southern border to the troubled, predominantly black city only 40 miles away from the nation’s capital.

Report: DOJ IG Referred James Comey For Criminal Prosecution For Leaking Classified Information By Madeline Osburn

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/01/doj-ig-referred-james-comey-criminal-prosecution-leaking-classified-information/

The Department of Justice’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz is preparing a report recommending a criminal referral for FBI Director James Comey, concluding that he leaked classified memos and showed a lack of candor with investigators, according to a new report from The Hill.

Attorney General William Barr and DOJ prosecutors have reportedly found the IG report compelling but declined to follow through with charges because of a lack certainty surrounding Comey’s intent to break the law.

Investigative journalist John Solomon reported that the DOJ did not want to “make its first case against the Russia investigators with such thin margins and look petty and vindictive.”

The report shows that Comey transmitted classified information via an insecure email account and gave memos, some of which were classified up to the “secret” level, to his private lawyers.

One memo in question includes classified information Comey leaked to a friend, with the intention that it would be leaked to the media. Indeed, the New York Times reported information from the “confidential” memo, which said President Trump asked Comey to drop an investigation into then-national security adviser Michael Flynn.

James Comey’s next reckoning is imminent — this time for leaking By John Solomon

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/455616-james-comeys-next-reckoning-is-imminent-this-time-for-leaking

The Justice Department’s chief watchdog is preparing a damning report on James Comey’s conduct in his final days as FBI director that likely will conclude he leaked classified information and showed a lack of candor after his own agency began looking into his feud with President Trump over the Russia probe.

Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz’s team referred Comey for possible prosecution under the classified information protection laws, but Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors working for Attorney General William Barr reportedly have decided to decline prosecution — a decision that’s likely to upset Comey’s conservative critics.

Prosecutors found the IG’s findings compelling but decided not to bring charges because they did not believe they had enough evidence of Comey’s intent to violate the law, according to multiple sources. 

The concerns stem from the fact that one memo that Comey leaked to a friend specifically to be published by the media — as he admitted in congressional testimony — contained information classified at the lowest level of “confidential,” and that classification was made by the FBI after Comey had transmitted the information, the sources said.

Although a technical violation, the DOJ did not want to “make its first case against the Russia investigators with such thin margins and look petty and vindictive,” a source told me, explaining the DOJ’s rationale.

But Comey and others inside the FBI and the DOJ during his tenure still face legal jeopardy in ongoing probes by the IG and Barr-appointed special prosecutor John Durham. Those investigations are focused on the origins of the Russia investigation that included a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign at the end of the 2016 election, the source said.

“There are significant issues emerging with how the FISA was handled and other conduct in the investigation, and everyone involved remains under scrutiny,” a second source said.