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Ruth King

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The Taliban Smell Blood The terror group launches attack after attack, but the U.S. still hasn’t suspended Afghan peace talks. By Husain Haqqani

By on July 17th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-taliban-smell-blood-11563318903

Even when the Taliban talk peace, they make war. Discussions in Doha, Qatar, have not stopped their attacks in Afghanistan. One killed a U.S. serviceman Saturday. A July 7 car bomb killed at least 14 people and wounded more than 180, including scores of children. This talk-and-shoot approach reflects the Taliban’s belief that the talks concern only the orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. That won’t do. The U.S. should now suspend talks with the Taliban to drive home the point that peace, not simply withdrawal, is America’s goal.

The two sides seem to have been working at cross-purposes since the negotiations began last October. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy for Afghan reconciliation, described the goal of his first meeting with Taliban representatives as exploring the prospect of “a peaceful Afghanistan where all Afghans see themselves included.” The Taliban insisted in their statement that the talks were about “the end of occupation and a peaceful resolution for the Afghan issue.”

After eight rounds of direct talks, and several side meetings aimed at facilitating dialogue among Afghan political factions, the Taliban’s stance on the scope of discussions remains the same.

The head of the Taliban delegation to Doha, Abbas Stanikzai, explained last week that “there is no word of reducing violence.” He argued that the Taliban’s actions could not even be described as violence, since they were part of “a fight against foreign occupation.” In May, when Mr. Khalilzad publicly broached the subject of halting the violence, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid snapped back with tweets describing the idea of the insurgents putting down arms as “fantasies.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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Muslim Who Killed Jewish Woman After Shouting, “Allahu Akbar” Not Responsible Because He Smoked Pot Daniel Greenfield

By on July 17th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/274319/muslim-who-killed-jewish-woman-after-shouting-daniel-greenfield

It’s easy to characterize this as anti-Semitism.

But there’s a raft of Muslim terrorists in Europe who were passed off as mentally ill because they’d used drugs. It’s a strange counterpart to the “low IQ due to lead poisoning” strategy that a bunch of defense lawyers have seized on recently in the United States.

I wrote about the Halimi case two years ago. From the very beginning, even before she was murdered, French authorities chose not to act against the Muslim killer of an elderly Jewish woman. Since then, there has been the usual round of obstructionism and legal hopscotch.

The 66-year-old director of an Orthodox Jewish nursery was woken from her sleep when she was violently beaten by her twenty something Muslim neighbor who then dragged her to the window.

Yonathan Halimi, Sarah Lucy’s son, describes the killer’s family as being known for its anti-Semitism. “One day, one of the killer’s sisters pushed my sister down the stairs, and the next time she called her a dirty Jew,” he described. Sarah’s brother said that the killer called Sarah and her daughter, “dirty Jews”.

On the day before Passover Eve, a thousand Jews gathered outside the building where the latest Halimi was murdered. As they memorialized Sarah Lucy Halimi, the colorful and multicultural settlers of this portion of occupied Paris, greeted them with thrown bottles and shouts of, “Dirty Jews”.

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Ari Lieberman: A Radical Squad’s Jew-Hate The cancer of anti-Semitism takes firm root in the Democratic Party.

By on July 17th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274324/radical-squads-jew-hate-ari-lieberman

This week’s brouhaha between Donald Trump and the radical left-wing of the Democratic Party or the so-called “Squad,” has exposed deep fissures within the Party itself, with centrist Democrats becoming an ever increasing rare breed. The Democratic Party is eating itself alive, the result of open warfare between moderates and radical progressives, and the extremists appear to have the upper hand. More troubling is the level of anti-Semitic rhetoric routinely spewed by the radicals and the deafening silence of Party leaders in response to this deleterious trend. The Democratic Party of today, with its Jew-hating, Israel-bashing rhetoric is sounding more and more like its Labour cousin across the Atlantic.

The British Labour Party itself has experienced some rough sailing these last few months. In May, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced it had launched an investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party. It’s not every day that the EHRC opens an investigation of this type against a major British political party. In fact, it is unprecedented. Last week, three senior Labour lawmakers in the upper house of the parliament resigned from Labour because the Party’s failure to address its antisemitism problem.

The trio join a steady stream of Labour MPs who have resigned in disgust over what they termed as Labour’s turning a blind eye to, or even encouraging antisemitism within the Party. One of the resignees, David Triesman, referred to Britain’s Labour Party as “institutionally anti-Semitic,” and further noted that UK Labour was “no longer a safe political environment for Jewish people.” Harsh words for a former hardcore Labour loyalist.

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Radical Squad Refuses To Condemn Antifa Firebomb Attack Against ICE The Left unveils its heart of darkness. Matthew Vadum

By on July 17th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274327/radical-squad-refuses-condemn-antifa-firebomb-matthew-vadum

Prominent radical left-wing Democrat lawmakers are refusing to condemn an Antifa terrorist’s attempted firebombing of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, over the weekend.

Many Democrats have been demanding the abolition of ICE for the past year and in recent months they have begun comparing ICE agents to Nazis.

Now the four first-term small-c communist Democrat congresswomen who have come to be known collectively as “The Squad” for their strident over-the-top attacks on Republicans and for their aggressive opposition to the House Democrat leadership, especially Speaker Nancy Pelosi are remaining silent about the terrorist attack.

The four lawmakers – Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts – who like Antifa reflexively label people they don’t like “racist,” have become the guiding lights of their party dragging it ever leftward, and likely into electoral oblivion.

At Townhall, Katie Pavlich documented how Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, and Pressley refused to condemn the attacks when approached by reporters.

Omar refused to comment. Previously she has made light of the 9/11 attacks and praised al-Qaeda.

Ocasio-Cortez, who has called ICE detention facilities “concentration camps” also refused to comment.

Similarly, Pressley refused to comment on the attack but she did condemn reporter Caleb Hull for standing too close to her while asking questions she refused to answer, accusing him of “a lack of journalistic integrity” for “not respecting her physical space.”

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EDUCATION, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Dress codes for public school students degrade even further By Peter Skurkiss

By on July 17th, 2019

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

Public school dress codes are degrading.  This is no mean feat, given how low the standards already are.  As good example of the trend comes from the Austin Independent School District (AISD) in Texas. 

This district has a little over 81,000 students, of whom 27 percent are white.  Its current dress code was challenge in a petition supposedly crafted by a group of parents.  It reads in part:

The current district dress code does not uphold the AISD values of equity, diversity, and inclusion. It contains vague language, arbitrary restrictions, and emphasizes bans on clothing that are primarily worn by females and minorities. It also allows for individual schools to create additional restrictions, which leads to further inequality across our district.

This petition touched all the hot-button issues and basically claims that the current dress code is racist and sexist and does not uphold “diversity.”  Faced with such charges, what could a progressive school district do but capitulate?  A new dress code was formulated.  Here’s how one Austin TV station describes what’s coming. 

Under the new proposed dress code, students would be allowed to wear hats, sweatshirts with hood up, athletic gear and even pajamas.  Specifically for girls, spaghetti straps, tank tops, halter top and shorts of any length, as long as their buttocks are covered, would be permitted.  The draft says bra straps and underwear waistbands could also show under the new rules.

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Wokeness at Warp Speed by Mark Steyn

By on July 16th, 2019

https://www.steynonline.com/9552/wokeness-at-warp-speed

A few months ago I observed to Tucker Carlson that the difference between “Bush Derangement Syndrome” and “Trump Derangement Syndrome” was that the former was largely contained to a visceral loathing for the President himself, whereas the latter has been extended to anyone who voted for him – ie, the half of the electorate comprised of “racists”, “fascists” and “white supremacists”. Now TDS rampages on, to consume half the Democrats, too.

Say what you like about Nancy Pelosi, but she took back the House by running the Dems as a “moderate” party that talked about things like voter concern over health care. A year on, and most of what the party’s presidential candidates are yakking about – busing, the needs of trans-African-Americans, open borders to all six-and-a-half billion Undocumented-Americans around the world – is bonkers. The Democrat platform is a twitchy reflex that, whatever Trump is for, they’re against. So he wakes up every morning, tweets his rubber hammer at their kneecaps, and they respond accordingly. He doesn’t even have to hold any particular position: The actual Trump is utterly indifferent on the matter of “gender fluidity” and, from his experience as a businessman in Canada and Scotland, is not ill-disposed toward socialized health care. But the Trump of their fevers is a transphobe who wants to shove granny off a cliff, and that’s who they’re running against.

So the party of Big Government will no longer cooperate with the biggest government of all. Behold Eric Garcetti, mayor of a city the middle class is fleeing, where less and less works, where traffic is at a standstill, and you can’t get out and walk because the sidewalks are full of tent cities, human feces and flesh-eating viruses. And his priority is non-cooperation with ICE. And notice his artful pitch: Democrats have long abolished the distinction between “immigrants” and the millions who just walked into the country, which is why the Mayor sells his position to “Angelenos” as simply that of being a “good neighbor”. Are Mexico and Guatemala “good neighbors” to the United States? Does a “good neighbor” just move into the house next door and then demand you support him in his lawlessness?

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EDUCATION, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Age of Amnesia by Joel Kotkin

By on July 16th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/07/15/age-of-amnesia/

We live, as the Indian essayist Saeed Akhter Mirza has put it, in “an age of amnesia.” Across the world, most notably in the West, we are discarding the knowledge and insights passed down over millennia and replacing it with politically correct bromides cooked up in the media and the academy. In some ways, this process recalls, albeit in digital form, the Middle Ages. Conscious shaping of thought—and the manipulation of the past to serve political purposes—is becoming commonplace and pervasive.

Google’s manipulation of algorithms, recently discussed in American Affairs, favors both their commercial interests and also their ideological predilections. Similarly, we see the systematic “de-platforming” of conservative and other groups who offend the mores of tech oligarchs and their media fellow travellers. Major companies are now distancing themselves from “offensive” reminders of American history, such as the Nike’s recent decision to withdraw a sneaker line featuring the Betsy Ross flag. In authoritarian societies, the situation is already far worse. State efforts to control the past in China are enhanced by America’s tech firms, who are helping to erase from history events like the Tiananmen massacre or the mass starvations produced by Maoist policies. Technology has provided those who wish to shape the past, and the future, tools of which the despots of yesterday could only dream.

Factories of  “Mass Amnesia”

Sadly, many of  the very institutions charged with understanding the past are now slipping back to Medieval antecedents. Writing in 1913, the historian J. B. Bury compared the Middle Ages to “a large field … covered by beliefs which authority claimed to impose as true, and [where] reason was warned off the ground.” Scholars at the University of Paris, described as the “theological arbiter of Europe,” were “licensed” by the bishop to, among other things, defend church dogma. In the late 1300s, the University held a conclave to reassert the reality of demons that were supposedly infecting society. 1   

Over the ensuing centuries, as capitalism and liberal thought arose, the university gradually  emerged as a beacon of liberal education, open inquiry, and tolerance. But this period of liberalization seems to be coming to an end. Like the Medieval scholars, today’s intellectuals are narrowing the field of inquiry. The “frantic energy to know more and more about less and less,” identified by Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin a half century ago, has made academic life increasingly irrelevant to most people.

A healthy appreciation for the past is being lost. Today, historical analysis is increasingly shaped by concerns over race, gender, and class. There are repeated campaigns, particularly in and around schools, to pull down offensive statues and murals—including of George Washington—and to rename landmarks to cleanse Western history of its historical blights.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Rep. Ilhan Omar Refuses To Denounce Al-Qaeda, Islamic Terrorism By Madeline Osburn

By on July 16th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/16/rep-ilhan-omar-refuses-denounce-al-qaeda-islamic-terrorism/

Rep. Ilhan Omar refused to answer whether she supports the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda, at a press conference Monday.

“I will not dignify it with an answer because I know that every single Islamophobe, every single person who is hateful, who is driven by an ideology of ‘othering’ as this president is, rejoices in us responding to that and us defending ourselves,” Omar said.

“I do not expect every time there is a white supremacist who attacks or there is a white man who kills in a school or in a movie theater, or in a mosque, or in a synagogue, I don’t expect my white community members to respond on whether they love that person or not. And so I think it is beyond time, it is beyond time to ask Muslims to condemn terrorists. We are no longer going to allow the dignification of such ridiculous — ridiculous statement,” she said.

Earlier on Monday, President Trump recalled Omar’s previous comments about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Omar still refuses to answer the question of who she believes was responsible for the attacks. Multiple requests from The Federalist for a comment from Omar have gone unanswered.

“I mean, I look at the one, I look at Omar, I don’t know her, I never met her. I hear the way she talks about al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda has killed many Americans,” Trump said. “When she talked about the World Trade Center being knocked down, some people, you remember the famous ‘some people.’ These are people that, in my opinion, hate our country.”

Trump also tweeted out similar comments on Monday afternoon.

In a 2013 interview, Omar complained about people who think there are differences between America and al-Qaeda.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

What The GOP Would Look Like If Peter Thiel Were In Charge Thiel is not only advancing traditional conservative values, but he’s also asking for the overthrow of the prestigious institutions of post-war America.By Titus Techera

By on July 16th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/16/gop-look-like-peter-thiel-charge/

On July 14, the National Conservatism Conference started in Washington DC as the first public attempt to say what conservatism is after the Donald Trump election. It’s fitting that it’s organized by a new outfit, the Edmund Burke Foundation, created in January 2019 and chaired by Yoram Hazony, the scholar who became famous in 2018 for his book “The Virtue Of Nationalism,” and advised by Rusty Reno, editor of First Things and Chris DeMuth, the prominent conservative scholar of public policy (all three of whom are speakers at the conference).

A large number of other journalists, intellectuals, and scholars will give speeches—some famous, some not (here’s the list). The first striking thing is the absence of politicians speaking about the future of conservatism. Apparently, we are looking for ideas elsewhere, despite the GOP’s historic electoral victories in 2016. The exceptions are Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.), recently famous for proposing a bill to use the federal government to enforce free speech requirements on social media corporations, and National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Redefining and Popularizing Conservatism

The conference is nevertheless emphatically political, aimed not merely at redefining conservatism, but at making the case that it is a preferable alternative to the liberalism prevailing in elite institutions in America. The speakers are aiming to popularize new ideas to inspire politicians and political organizations.

In short, they want a new GOP fit for the political world shaking up after the 2016 election. There is something admirable and even noble about this attempt, but we should also see what the new ideas are and where they tend.

To start with, let us talk about Peter Thiel’s keynote address, which circulated widely. Thiel rarely makes political statements, but he shocked everyone by supporting Trump in 2016 and giving a passionate speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC). Now, he’s doubling down on some of his most surprising, unconventional ideas, which finally have their chance to become part of a party platform.

Thiel took aim at the most prestigious liberal institutions in our times: Silicon Valley and academia. He claimed they are only good for elite liberals and have become bad for America as a whole and directly inimical to the conservative half of America.

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The Selfish Actors of Illegal Immigration By Victor Davis Hanson

By on July 16th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/illegal-immigration-many-selfish-actors-benefit/

Many people benefit from the lawbreaking: The Mexican and Central American governments, the Democratic party, employers, ethnic activists, rich progressives, and the illegal border crossers themselves.

Almost every party invested in open borders proves utterly selfish, without regard for the legitimate interests of others or of the law itself.

The Illegal Immigrant
The immigrant is the pawn of Latin American governments who view him as inanimate capital, someone who represents thousands of dollars in future foreign-exchange remittances, as well as one less mouth to feed at home — if he crosses the border, legality be damned. If that sounds a cruel or cynical appraisal, then why would the Mexican government in 2005 print a comic booklet (“Guide for the Mexican Migrant”) with instructions to its citizens on how best to cross into the United States — urging them to break American law and assuming that they could not read?

Yet for all the savagery dealt out to the immigrant — the callousness of his government, the shakedowns of the coyotes and cartels, the exploitation of his labor by new American employers — the immigrant himself is not entirely innocent. He knows — or does not care to know — that by entering the U.S., he has taken a slot from a would-be legal immigrant, one, unlike himself, who played by the rules and waited years in line for his chance to become an American.

He knowingly violates U.S. immigration law. And when the first act of an immigrant is to enter the U.S. illegally, the second to reside there unlawfully, and the third so often to adopt false identities, he undermines American law on the expectation that he will receive exemptions not accorded to U.S. citizens, much less to other legal immigrants. In terms of violations of federal law, and crimes such as hit-and-run accidents and identity theft, the illegal immigrant is overrepresented in the criminal-justice system, and indeed in federal penitentiaries.

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