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Ruth King

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Why Feel-Good Policy Rarely Works Best Timothy Snowball

By on June 15th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/15/why-feel-good-policy-rarely-works-best/

Reprinted with permission from Pacific Legal Foundation’s Summer Sword & Scales.

Developing effective public policy is tough, thoughtful work. There is so much to consider: What is the problem? What can be done about it? Who is best equipped (and legally authorized) to do it? 

What is the likelihood of success? Time, study, and seriousness are the name of the game. 

That is, unless you’re a California state official. In that case, no hard thinking — or data — is needed. Just develop public policy based on what feels good. The California plastic straw ban is a prime example. 

In an effort to seem as ecofriendly as possible, California, along with several cities and localities around the country, have decided to outlaw plastic straws in bars and restaurants unless upon specific request. 

These sweeping policy decisions were not based on serious contemplation of the issue, studies looking into the best environmental practices, or considering reality. Instead, they were inspired by a report from a 9-year-old and a viral YouTube video featuring an injured sea turtle. 

Here’s the background: Eight years ago, a fifth-grader named Milo Cress began a campaign urging his hometown to “Be Straw Free.” He encouraged restaurants to ask customers before offering straws. As part of the campaign, Milo called a handful of straw manufacturers and asked them how many straws they sell. Then, based on that limited data, he extrapolated a claim that Americans consume 500 million plastic straws a day. 

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POLITICS Comments turned off

No Outrage Over Democrat Ties to Foreign Election Interference By Julie Kelly

By on June 15th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/14/no-outrage-over-democrat-ties-to-foreign-election-interference/

In the latest media-manufactured crisis du jour, the president now stands falsely accused of inviting foreign interference into our elections.

During an Oval Office interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Thursday, President Trump said there “isn’t anything wrong” with listening to information offered up by a foreigner about a candidate’s political opponent.

“It’s not an interference, they have information. I think I’d take it,” he told Stephanapolous when asked whether it’s appropriate to accept opposition research from someone in another country. “If I thought there was something wrong, maybe I’d take it to the FBI, if I thought there was something wrong.”

The rather innocuous comments unleashed the predictable and tiresome widespread outrage. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scolded the president for “not knowing between right and wrong” and demanded that “everyone in the country should be appalled.”

Trump’s remarks provided the newest grist for impeachment threats. Perpetual bore Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) apparently misunderstood Trump’s response, but nonetheless seized the opportunity again to boast of his moral superiority. “I ran for president twice. I ran for governor once. I ran for Senate twice,” Romney told CNN, once again reminding Americans that he has been in politics for way too long. “I’ve never had any attempt made by a foreign government. Had that occurred, I would’ve contacted the FBI immediately.”

Even Ellen Weintraub, the chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, weighed in from her long-expired perch (her term officially ended in 2007) at that agency:

While Weintraub’s lecture earned atta boys from the usual suspects, it again brought attention to the legitimate scandal that the media, Democrats, and NeverTrump Republicans continue to ignore and excuse: The use of foreign sources to fabricate and promote the Russian collusion fable during the 2016 presidential campaign.

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Godspeed, Sarah Sanders The outgoing press secretary was a breath of fresh air Roger Kimball

By on June 15th, 2019

https://spectator.us/godspeed-sarah-sanders/

THIS IS AN EXCERPT…..BRILLIANT!!!!RSK

“Then we come to another leitmotif in the anti-Sanders orgy that has so delighted the anti-Trump stalwarts commenting on Sanders’s departure. I mean the fact that she long ago dispensed with daily press briefings. ‘Other press secretaries and the administrations they served have catered to us, why don’t you?’

Here I come to a melancholy truth that, being of a charitable disposition, I hesitate to impart to the yapping pack of sensitive and entitled scribes who have closed ranks against the president and his staff. It is this: Donald Trump does things differently from other presidents. You may have been used to being fed pabulum daily by previous administrations, some of which you treated with hostile disdain, some with uncritical adulation.

But nowhere, except in the odiferous annals of your inflated self-importance, is it written that you are entitled to daily, weekly, or monthly press briefings. I know that is a blow to your vanity, but there it is. Mirabile dictu, the republic survives, even in the face of your neglect. The truth is, as any dispassionate observer will acknowledge, that Donald Trump and Sarah Sanders have treated the press with far more courtesy and candor than they have treated them.

What the press cannot abide is their continued existence: that Donald Trump is still, even now, even after they, thundering bullfrogs of the press, have laid out their objections to an indifferent populace. How could they, the ingrates. And now a Trump loyalist is departing. Let’s hound her on the way out and exhibit just how small, ungracious, and craven we are.

As Donald Trump said, Sarah Sanders is a brave and generous-hearted woman, a ‘warrior’ whose hem the mirror-gazing minions of the press are unworthy to touch. They’ll read each other’s headlines and smirk, but that will be paltry gratification in the face of six more years of Trump and a justly proud and successful Sarah Sanders, who might just take Donald Trump’s advice and run for the governorship of the great state of Arkansas. Godspeed to her.”

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It’s Time for Progressives to Protect Women Instead of Pronouns by Julie Bindel

By on June 15th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/06/14/its-time-for-progressives-to-protect-women-instead-of-pronouns/

“A century ago, suffragists were beaten and imprisoned for asserting their rights as women. Their attackers were conservative reactionaries who hated the idea of women being treated as equals. It is shocking to see this same spirit of misogyny re-enter the marketplace of ideas through the back door of faux-progressive trans orthodoxy.”

On my way out of Edinburgh University last week, where I’d just delivered a speech on how feminists should resist male violence, I was attacked by a shrieking “transgender person” (to cite the term used in a Scotsman headline). Had it not been for the three burly security guards surrounding me, I would have been punched.

I usually use female pronouns to refer to trans women, as a courtesy. But this is a courtesy I won’t extend to someone seeking to hurt me physically. This was a man—specifically, a misogynist who’d become notorious under the (since deleted) Twitter handle TownTattle. He was deeply offended that I’d been allowed to speak. That’s why he wanted to hurt me: for being a woman who opened her mouth.

The event at which I’d appeared was called Women’s Sex-Based Rights. It focussed on the threat to women-only spaces and organizations posed by gender activists who seek to erase any legal distinction in regard to the treatment of male- and female-bodied individuals. In the run-up to the event, trans activists and their allies (mostly men who are highly woke, as popular slang would have it) had been claiming that the meeting would cause harm to trans students, and that I would be promoting hate.

Before we took the stage, speakers were given an hour-long briefing by the university’s security team. We were told what would happen if the stage were stormed by protesters, or if it became necessary to vacate the venue. This is what it now means to advocate publicly for women’s rights.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Aren’t delirious Democrats now accusing Team Obama of treason? John Solomon

By on June 15th, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/448589-arent-delirious-democrats-now-accusing-team-obama-of-treason

American voters are a lot harder to fool than the political elite think.

If you read the newspapers, tuned into the cable TV pundits or received an email from one of the Democrats running for president, you’d swear Donald Trump was back to his treasonous ways. 

All that was missing was an annoying OMG text exclamation punctuating the unfounded claims that Trump might violate the law in 2020 by accepting intelligence on a political rival from a foreign country. The inference, of course, is that it would come from a hostile power such as  Russia or North Korea or Iran.

Actually, what Trump told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos was that he’d consider taking intelligence dirt about a rival from a friendly ally. (Norway was the actual example he used.)

Sound familiar? That is EXACTLY what the Obama administration did in 2016. It’s something no one in the media or the political space grasped during the tsunami of breathless reaction that followed the interview.

In July 2016, the Obama administration accepted unsolicited information from Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat who just happened to have helped arrange a $25 million government donation to the Clinton Foundation years before. Downer said that he had witnessed a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, bragging about some dirt that the Russians supposedly had on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Though Downer’s claim was reported two-plus months after the alleged event, and was only hearsay gathered at a London tavern, the Obama administration gave it to the FBI which, in turn, thought it was weighty enough to justify opening a counterintelligence case against the lawfully elected Republican nominee for president.

In other words, the Democratic administration accepted dirt from a foreign friendly and used it to justify investigating its GOP rival.

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Defining Socialism Down Bernie Sanders left out a few details about his political creed.

By on June 15th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/defining-socialism-down-11560553255

Part of Bernie Sanders’ apparent political appeal is his authenticity. He may be a socialist, but at least he’s honest about it. Then again, his speech on Thursday defining his idea of democratic socialism may begin to erode that reputation.

The Vermont Senator presents himself as the ideological descendant of FDR, whom many seniors still revere and millennials incorrectly believe rescued America from the Great Depression. Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee and energy-industry takeover? Mr. Sanders says they are merely an extension of New Deal programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

“Like today, the quest for transformative change was opposed by big business, Wall Street, the political establishment, by the Republican Party and by the conservative wing of FDR’s own Democratic Party,” the Democratic Socialist declared. “While he stood up for the working families of our country, we can never forget that President Roosevelt was reviled by the oligarchs of his time, who berated these extremely popular programs as ‘socialism.’”

We can understand why Mr. Sanders wants to define socialism in this way, since the polls show the word is politically toxic for most Americans. But he’s underselling his own contributions. FDR’s social programs were based on the principle of work in return for benefits. Workers chipped in part of their payroll to finance their own retirement many years hence. The benefits are unsustainable now, but at least they require someone to work.

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Misleading While Muslim The politics of a Yemeni-American educational activist and by now mainstream Democrat. by Andrew Harrod

By on June 14th, 2019

https://spectator.org/misleading-while-muslim/

At a recent appearance in Washington, D.C., leading Muslim-American educator Debbie Almontaser hawked her new book, Leading While Muslim: The Experiences of American Muslim Principals After 9/11. The book grew out of her own personal experiences as the founding principal of the long-troubled Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), a New York City public high school with a focus on Arabic instruction.

In 2007, Almontaser resigned from KGIA after praising a t-shirt bearing the phrase “Intifada NYC” — an apparent reference to violence against Jews in Israel and the Palestinian territories. “Intifada,” Almontaser insisted, “basically means ‘shaking off. ’” Almontaser argued that although the word was “developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian-Israeli areas,” it was nonetheless “an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society” and are “shaking off oppression.” Her comments sparked storms of protest from the New York Post, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and local parents.

The group that produced the t-shirt, Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media (AWAAM), shared office space with the Saba Organization of American Yemenis, of which Almontaser was a board member and spokesperson. AWAAM also shared officials with Al-Awda, an anti-Israel organization that the ADL has accused of openly supporting terrorism and violent anti-Semitism.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Denmark’s Elections by Judith Bergman

By on June 14th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14375/denmark-elections

A significant development in this election was that anti-immigration parties generally fared poorly.

“Many citizens wrongly think that the immigration issue is under control and that it can therefore safely be left to the Left. It is not under control… [B]y the year 2050, we will see a doubling of the Muslim population in Denmark… that would not be a problem if we had a solution for how to integrate them, but nowhere in Western Europe has a solution been found”. — Kasper Støvring, author and commentator, Debatten-DR, June 6, 2019.

Another new development was that for the first time, according to a report in Jyllands Posten, Muslim voters were organized, in certain urban areas…. [A]n electoral group was set up, which, in co-operation with a mosque and various other associations, recommended that people vote for the two parties: the center-left Det Radikale Venstre and the far left Enhedslisten… Both parties have a pro-immigration stance. Det Radikale Venstre, for instance, wants to make it easier for refugees to gain permanent residence in Denmark.

Immigration policy will be one of the main challenges for the Social Democratic Party, as it attempts to form a government with the seats of Det Radikale Venstre and Enhedslisten, in addition to the Socialist People’s Party…. the Social Democrats [wanted] the bulk of their policy focusing on how to reduce and control the influx of refugees and migrants, including the use of reception centers outside of Europe. In addition, their policy included making all stays for refugees in Denmark temporary, and extending border controls and reforming the Schengen cooperation so that individual countries decide when and how long they can control their own borders. Their policy also backs sending rejected asylum seekers home and tightening the laws in order to stop illegal migrants from working in Denmark.

In Denmark’s general election on June 5, the Danes gave the center-left and far left parties on the political spectrum — the Social Democratic Party, Det Radikale Venstre (the Danish Social Liberal Party), Socialistisk Folkeparti (the Socialist People’s Party), and Enhedslisten (the Red-Green Alliance) — 91 seats in parliament, a majority out of the 179 available seats. In doing so, the Danes waved goodbye to the current liberal-conservative government. The largest party on the left, the Social Democratic Party with 48 seats, and led by Mette Frederiksen, is currently trying to form a government.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Where BDS and Terrorists Converge The international Left and the Iranian-controlled terror nexus. Caroline Glick

By on June 14th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274004/where-bds-and-terrorists-converge-caroline-glick

On May 31, the cry went out from Times Square, New York City, to annihilate Israel and extend the terror war against the Jewish state to America.

As they did in Beirut, Berlin, London, Tehran, and Dearborn, Michigan, Israel-haters gathered at Times Square to call for Israel’s dissolution on the day the Iranian regime has determined to be “Al Quds Day,” that is, Jerusalem Day.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) posted a video of the event. In it, a series of speakers called over and over again for Israel’s annihilation, voiced support for terrorists and terrorism and called for the war against Israel to come to New York.

Nate Chase from the World Workers’ Party led the crowd in chanting, “We don’t want not two state! We want ’48!”

That is, we don’t want to partition the land mass west of the Jordan River. We want to annihilate Israel, which was established in 1948.

Chase continued, “Because every inch – from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea – is Palestine!

“Israel does not exist! It has not existed, it doesn’t exist, and it will never exist! There is only Palestine!” he cried.

Rokeya Begun, from a New York-based Palestinian pro-terror group called Within our Lifetime, called out, “Globalize the intifada!”

“From New York to Gaza!”

And Joe Catron from Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner [i.e. terrorist] Solidarity Network, led the crowd chanting, “There is only one solution!”

The crowd responded, “Intifada! Revolution!”

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A Conservative Resistance? By Angelo Codevilla

By on June 14th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/13/a-conservative-resistance/

Leftists in America treat conservative voters, elected officials, and policies as illegitimate. Should conservative Americans return the favor? Could they?

Few outside the corporate leftist media took seriously Hillary Clinton’s accusation that Donald Trump might refuse to accept defeat in the 2016 election. Though Americans’ sociopolitical divisions had already become irreconcilable, no one really believed that a major party would rebel against the voters, and hence against our constitutional republic—yet.

And yet the Democratic Party and the ruling class that it represents did just that, and decided never again to concede legitimacy to any serious opponents’ victory.

#TheResistance began as an attempt by Clinton and her staffers to explain why their unexpected electoral defeat had to be illegitimate. It burgeoned quickly into rejection of rule by voters because so many on the Left and in the ruling class rallied to it, having already decided that ordinary Americans have no right to stand in their way.

Clinton’s characterization of Trump voters as “deplorables” and “irredeemables” and Barack Obama’s description of rural Republican voters as “clingers” to Bibles, guns, and racism, has long been ruling-class conventional wisdom. This attitude is what crossed the threshold of revolution.

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