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Ruth King

Of Progressive Carnivores and Cannibals By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/14/of-progressive-carnivores-and-cannibals/

The Obama-era Democratic Party bears little resemblance to the themes embraced just 11 years ago by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primaries.

The parameters of marriage, in Obama’s words “between a man and woman,” has now transmogrified beyond gay civil unions to legal gay marriage to transgendered fixations.

Obama once protested that he was no king who could open the border and grant amnesties by fiat. Yet his view of immigration has metamorphosed well beyond DACA and Dreamers into Democratic candidates going into Mexico to escort aliens unlawfully into our country, and 500 sanctuary jurisdictions in which federal immigration law is all but null and void. An American citizen convicted of using a fake Social Security Number and phony ID is a felon who is all but unemployable; an illegal alien who commits the same crimes learns quickly that these are not deportable offenses and mostly never prosecuted.

In a nanosecond, Betsy Ross’s iconic colonial flag, which once emblazoned the backdrop of the 2012 Obama inauguration ceremony, have become racist icons—or so Nike pitchman Colin Kaepernick has decreed, ordering his corporate bosses to remove them from commemorative sneakers.

Obamacare has abruptly morphed into “Medicare for All”—including illegal aliens who are to be eligible the moment they cross the border, despite never having paid a dime into the system.

Don’t Celebrate Bastille Day By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/14/dont-celebrate-bastille-day/

Since I am writing on Bastille Day, I am prompted to wonder why the French—or anyone else, for that matter—celebrate this infamous date. After all, the “storming” of that royal keep in 1789 was the spark that started the conflagration of the French Revolution. Unlike the American Revolution, in which the rule of law and the institutions of civil society survived the change of governments, the French Revolution was one of the signal bad events in world history. It consumed civil society and the centuries-old institutions of civilization. It was an unalloyed triumph of the totalitarian spirit, and in this respect it presaged and inspired that even greater assault on decency and freedom, the Bolshevik Revolution, the opening act of one of the darkest chapters in human history. The butcher’s bill for the French Revolution is many hundreds of thousands. Soviet Communism was responsible for the deaths of tens upon tens of millions and the universal immiseration of the people whose lives it controlled.

Yet today’s news is full of cheery stories about Bastille Day celebrations. Why?

It is generally a bootless errand, I know, to oppose myth with history. Myth, feeding a deep need, subsumes history. Still, truth demands that the effort be made.

One canard that we were all brought up on is that the Bastille was a loathsome dungeon full of innocent political prisoners. In fact, it harbored not hordes but precisely seven inmates when the mob stormed it. Contrary to what you have been told, the prisoners were detained in good conditions. At least one was attended by his own chef.  Bernard-René de Launay, the governor, was by all accounts a fair and patient man. But that did not save him from the mob’s “revolutionary justice.” They dragged him out of the fortress and stabbed him to death.

By rights, Bastille Day should be a day of national mourning or contrition. That it is not tells us a great deal—about the persistence of human credulousness, for example, and the folly of subordinating the imperfect, long-serving structures of civilization to the demands of impatient people infatuated by their own unquenchable sense of virtue. Tocqueville, in his book on the ancien régime at the eve of the revolution said that the “the contrast between benign theories and violent acts” was one of the Revolution’s “strangest characteristics.”

Fake News Begins With Fake Language “Politically Correct” language is really Orwellian Newspeak. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274283/fake-news-begins-fake-language-michael-cutler

Human beings think with words.  We express our thoughts with words. 

What truly differentiates humans from all other creatures is our ability to use language and preserve our thoughts in writing, thereby enabling us to pass down our knowledge from one generation to the next.  This is why the study of history is so important, but it is not only history that is passed from generation to generation but knowledge in general.  

We often say that “There is no need to reinvent the wheel.”  Consider that if not for written language, each generation would, in effect, be forced to reinvent the wheel and all other forms of technology.

The study of history can help keep us from making the same tragic mistakes, but only if history is accurately written.

As George Orwell sagely observed, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

The words that we use have real impact.

In 1974 an important psychological experiment was conducted that illustrated how altering words can not only have a significant impact on how the test subjects perceived the severity of a car crash but even ultimately impact how they remember the accident creating false memories.

Tommy Robinson and the Death of Britain Sharia justice in the UK. Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274294/tommy-robinson-and-death-britain-robert-spencer

As Tommy Robinson headed into court for his sentencing Thursday, he wore a t-shirt that read: “Convicted of Journalism.” And it’s true. Tommy Robinson is heading back to jail for doing what journalists routinely do: ask questions of defendants heading into courtrooms. The gaggle of establishment media journalists who peppered Tommy himself with questions as he entered the court have not been arrested.

British authorities claimed that Tommy Robinson had prejudiced the outcome of the trial of several members of a Muslim rape gang. This is arrant nonsense: the trial had been completed, and Tommy was asking them what they thought of their having been convicted. There was, however, a gag order on the proceedings, and it was on the basis of the claim that Tommy violated that gag order that he is now back in prison.

Why was the gag order put into place? The obvious reason is that the British government and law enforcement authorities are deeply embarrassed by their abysmal record in dealing with Muslim rape gangs. In just one city, Rotherham, British officials “described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.”

Nor did this happen only in Rotherham; all over the country, authorities let Muslim rape gangs run rampant for fear of being charged with “racism” and “Islamophobia” if they did anything about them. That is just what happened to Tommy Robinson when he dared to call attention to these gangs and the Islamic motivation behind their activities. The Muslim rape gangs went unreported, unprosecuted, and in general unstopped because of far-Left organizations including Hope Not Hate, Faith Matters, and Tell Mama, which waged relentless war against anyone and everyone who spoke out about this issue. They demonized as “Islamophobic,” “hateful” and “bigoted” anyone who said that there were Muslim rape gangs at all, and that they had to be stopped. They led the campaign to ban Pamela Geller and me from entering the country, when one of the events we had discussed going to was a rally against the Muslim rape gangs.

George Will finds his presidential candidate By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/07/george_will_finds_his_presidential_candidate.html

I’m so old that I remember when George Will’s opinion mattered to Republicans. Apparently, the Bezos Bulletin scribe realizes he’s lost his influence on the Grand Old Party and now offers advice to the Democrats on their nominee, in hopes that someone out there still cares about his opinions.

His disgust at President Trump – who has the support of roughly 90% of Republicans – is such that he has now taken to telling (fellow?) Democrats whom they should nominate in 2020, in order to defeat the man who has restored the American economy to growth rates exceeding population growth ( a task his predecessor assured us required a “magic wand”), nominated conservatives to the federal bench in numbers that matter, and exposed a nefarious plot among the federal intelligence and law enforcement apparatus to reverse a presidential election.

All that matters less than George Will’s animus toward Trump.

In the pages of National Review, whose standing has forever changed because of its impassioned special issue decrying Trump, Will has found his candidate: Senator Michael  Bennett, who (I paraphrase) is progressive but not crazy.

… if Democrats are as serious as they say they are about defeating Donald Trump, Bennet should be their nominee.

Any Organization that Denies Anti-Semitism Loses Credibility By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/any_organization_that_denies_antisemitism_loses_credibility.html

American students, many of whom display a shocking degree of ignorance about the Holocaust, will not find much trustworthy and objective information about anti-Semitism from touted academic databases such as the CQ Researcher.  The alleged “in-depth” report on anti-Semitism dated May 12, 2017 is filled with statements about President Trump, white supremacy, and right-wing hostility.  Thus, the report asserts:

In the run-up to the presidential election and afterward, the United States has experienced disturbing outbreaks of anti-Semitism, including a spate of incidents on more than 100 college campuses, where white supremacists have been distributing anti-Semitic fliers and openly recruiting adherents.  Some human rights and Jewish activists say President Trump has emboldened right-wing hostility toward Jews, but others say such charges are unjustified.  Defining anti-Semitism is controversial.  Members of Congress and state legislators want to codify a definition that would include opposition to Israel’s existence.  But pro-Palestinian and civil liberties groups say that would violate free-speech rights.  A similar debate is playing out in Europe, where some countries have seen a rise in deadly attacks on Jews in recent years, often by radicalized Muslims, such as the 2015 terrorist attack on a kosher grocery in Paris.  Paradoxically, growing anti-Muslim attitudes in countries experiencing an influx of refugees have also spurred more prejudice against Jews — the target of history’s longest hatred.

At no time does the article speak of the ugliness of such campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) who deliberately incite anti-Semitic acts on universities.  This might assist a student in understanding the nature of anti-Semitism.

Why Eastern Europeans Fear Islam: The Siege of Vienna, 1683 By Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/why_eastern_europeans_fear_islam_the_siege_of_vienna_1683.html

“Austria acts against Muslims almost every day because of their subconscious fear of Turks,” writes Turkish historian Erhan Afyoncu in the Daily Sabah.  “Austrians have not forgotten the fear and their emperor’s escape in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. When Turks were defeated in the Battle of Vienna, Europeans were so happy…”

Because this is true, a brief refresher of the Siege of Vienna is in order, particularly as its anniversary is right around now:

Around July 15, 1683, the largest Islamic army ever to invade European territory — which is saying much considering that countless invasions preceded it since the eighth century — came and surrounded Vienna, then the heart of the Holy Roman Empire and longtime nemesis of Islam.

Some 200,000 Muslim combatants, under the leadership of the Ottomans — the one state in nearly fourteen centuries of Islamic history most dedicated to and founded on the principles of jihad — invaded under the same rationale that so-called “radical” groups, such as the Islamic State, cite to justify their jihad on “infidels.”  Or, to quote the leader of the Muslim expedition, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, because Vienna was perceived as the head of the infidel snake, it needed to be laid low so that “all the Christians would obey the Ottomans.”

This was no idle boast; sources describe this Mustafa as “fanatically anti-Christian.” After capturing a Polish town in 1674 he ordered all the Christian prisoners to be skinned alive and their stuffed hides sent as trophies to Ottoman Sultan Muhammad IV.  Such supremacist hate was standard and on display during the elaborate pre-jihad ceremony presaging the siege of Vienna.  Then, the sultan, “desiring him [Mustafa] to fight generously for the Mahometan faith,” to quote a contemporary European source, placed “the standard of the Prophet… into his hands for the extirpation of infidels, and the increase of Muslemen.”

Now It’s a Climate ‘Emergency’ Democrats are ready to use Trump’s precedent for their own purposes.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/now-its-a-climate-emergency-11563138092

When President Trump declared a national “emergency” in February to take money from the Pentagon to build his border wall, these columns warned he was setting a precedent that Democrats would exploit. Well, that day has arrived, as Democrats last week introduced a resolution in Congress declaring a national emergency due to climate change.

Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a joint resolution declaring that the climate Apocalypse is nigh, and demanding “a national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization of the resources and labor of the United States at a massive-scale.” Some commentators are calling the resolution “symbolic,” noting a contradictory provision that reads “nothing in this concurrent resolution constitutes a declaration of a national emergency for purposes of . . . any special or extraordinary power.”

Yet Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer, who also introduced it, made his inspiration clear. “The national emergency is not the border, it’s the climate,” Mr. Blumenauer said on a press call. A Sanders spokesperson also drew the comparison, noting that, in contrast to Mr. Trump’s “phony national emergencies,” the Sanders resolution addresses a genuine “existential” threat.

Tlaib blasts Israel for ‘dehumanization and racist policies’

https://worldisraelnews.com/tlaib-blasts-israel-for-dehumanization-and-racist-policies/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=PushCrew_notification_1563119813&pushcrew_powered=1

“I see more Americans understanding the plight of Palestinians,” the Michigan congresswoman tells  Jacobin.

In her latest comments against the State of Israel, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) says that she “can’t separate” the Civil Rights Movement in her hometown of Detroit from the lack of equality in Israel, which she refers to as Palestine.

“My African-American teachers and others used to show me neighborhoods and communities that were segregated, where if you were a biracial couple you couldn’t live or work or eat in certain places, you couldn’t eat in certain places,” the Muslim congresswoman told Jacobin, which describes itself as “a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.”

“So my dad only went up to a fourth-grade education, my mom an eighth-grade education, and both were born in Palestine. My mom grew up in the West Bank in the occupied territories,” she says of her background.

“I can tell you when I was in Palestine with my mother and she had to get in a separate line,” says the Michigan representative, without elaborating on where this happened.

Then, she adds, “there are different colored license plates if you are Palestinian or Israeli,” referring more accurately to the days before Palestinians living in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza were granted self-rule. Since the 1993 understandings which set the stage for the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, those different license plates have indicated that the motorist is a resident of a Palestinian entity.

“There is continued dehumanization and racist policies by the state of Israel that violate international human rights but also violate my core values of who I am as an American,” she says, this time referring to the Jewish State by its name, but adding that “‘separate but equal’ doesn’t work.”

Within Israel, ironically, the left-wing argues that separation is necessary between Israelis and Palestinians, while right-wing nationalists are more likely to support Arabs and Israelis living together in Judea and Samaria.

“I know that my ancestors were killed, died, uprooted from their land. That’s something that no one even wants to acknowledge that had to happen to create the state of Israel,” she said.

“Do I want to see that happen to other people? Absolutely not!” she continues, in a more conciliatory tone. “But I want there to be a recognition that it happened and from there on, do some sort of healing process and understanding that it needs to then lead to equality and freedom for my grandmother who still lives there,” Tlaib told Jacobin.

“I see more Americans understanding the plight of Palestinians, in a way that doesn’t dehumanize or degrade Israelis either but does hold the leadership of the Israeli government accountable,” she said.

The truth about sex and Isil – from the ex-soldier who rescued 70 jihadi brides from its ‘giant brothel’ John Carney

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/truth-sex-isil-ex-soldier-rescued-70-jihadi-brides-giant-brothel/

“Islamic State with its torture, brutality and evil hypocrisy may no longer exist as a territorial power, but it will rise again and we in the West must be vigilant.”

After a long day patrolling the Isis border with a Kalashnikov, what the young jihadi fighter looks forward to is getting back to the ‘women’s guesthouses’ for a shower and a one-night ‘pleasure marriage.’

If he happens to bring a loaf of bread or a bar of chocolate, skinny-ribbed girls will line up to be blessed by an imam before climbing into the bridal bed. The marriage will last a couple of hours and be annulled in the morning so the woman can be passed on to someone else.  

This is just one of the many stories I heard from the 70 or so women, children and disaffected fighters I helped to rescue from the so-called Islamic State, over three years.

The religious one-night-stand, if you will, tells so much about its twisted morality: religious piety is key, and sex outside of marriage is forbidden, yet jihadi fighters could sleep with dozens of women – be they locals, European converts or Yazidi slave girls – all while preaching purity.

From 2014 until the collapse of the self-declared Islamic Caliphate in March 2019, thousands of young women made the unconscionable decision to leave their families and travel in secret across Europe to Iraq and Syria. 

Under the spell of Isis lies and propaganda, they went for the promise of love, adventure and jannah – the paradise on earth predicted in the Quran. What they found was a living hell. 

In the scores of interviews I conducted, I heard how girls as young as 15 were sold in Isis slave markets to drug-fuelled jihadis boasting how they intended to score their 72 virgins on earth rather than wait for martyrdom. Raped, starved and beaten with canes, most had watched beheadings. One girl caught with a mobile phone was stoned to death and her sister brides had to join, in terror.