Imam Mohamad Tawhidi (@Imamofpeace)
5/31/19, 4:44 PM
BLAME EVERYONE BUT THEMSELVES:
Shamima Begum’s family has written to the home secretary accusing UK authorities of failing to protect the east London girl from being “groomed” by Islamic State.
https://nypost.com/2019/05/31/pc-insanity-may-mean-the-end-of-american-universities/
People used to talk about the ends of the university and how the academic establishment was failing its students. Today, more and more people are talking about the end of the university, the idea being that it is time to think about closing them rather than reforming them.
Last month at a conference in London, the distinguished British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton added his voice to this chorus when responding to a questioner who complained of the physical violence meted out to conservative students at Birkbeck University.
There were two possible responses to this situation, Sir Roger said. One was to start competing institutions, outside the academic establishment, that welcomed conservative voices.
:
Sir Roger went on to qualify his recommendation, noting that a modern society required institutions to pursue science and engineering. But the humanities, which at most colleges and universities have devolved into cesspools of identity politics and grievance studies, should be starved of funding and ultimately shut down.
It’s an idea that is getting more and more traction.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/05/31/divisions_over_israel_shadow_calif_democrats_convention_140467.html
Democratic activists in California have sparked another divisive intra-party debate over inflammatory accusations leveled against the Israeli government at the state party gathering this weekend – an event where several Democratic presidential contenders plan to showcase their campaigns.
On Friday, the eve of the California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco, officials were set to consider at least five draft resolutions that would denounce the Israeli government’s influence on U.S. politics.
One particularly controversial resolution accuses Israel of willfully “aligning with the virulent Islamophobia” of white supremacist groups, including “Christian fundamentalist and ultra-right groups” in the U.S., and it indirectly links that alliance to the 2018 massacre of 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
The party’s Resolutions Committee on Friday evening will consider the five draft resolutions, among roughly 200 in total authored by convention delegates. The panel could try to table the ones dealing with Israel to avoid a dramatic public floor debate over the weekend.
Drew Hammill, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, declined to comment on the resolutions while they remain pending. State party spokesman Roger Salazar was equally reticent.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/wolves-in-creeps-clothing-michael-wolff-and-naomi-wolf-exposed/
Naomi Wolf was hired as a consultant by Al Gore in 1999 when he prepared for a presidential campaign. She was charged with making him an “alpha” man instead of a “beta” man who did not emphasize his masculinity….rsk
Let’s turn our attention for a moment to two authors, Wolf and Wolff. Feminist icon Naomi Wolf is reeling from a nonfiction fiasco that has caused her horrible and very public embarrassment. Irresponsible fictionalizer Michael Wolff is apparently incapable of shame.
What do they have in common? Not much, beyond the fact that they’re both bi-coastal elites who share a loathing for President Donald Trump.
In Wolf’s case, a perfect encapsulation of the PR nightmare befalling her latest work is presented by the Post Millennial’s Libby Emmons in “Naomi Wolf Was Destroyed by Her Research Bias.” While an author is ultimately responsible for fact-checking content, in this case, the “research bias” runs deep. The book started out as a thesis paper, which means it had to have been green-lit by both academia and New York publishing to ever see the light of day. These gatekeepers, steeped in leftist bias, failed to catch the monumental error that serves as the premise of Wolf’s book: the assertion that homosexuals were executed in Victorian England.
As for Wolff, how Trump could have allowed such an individual to plant himself on a couch in the West Wing for an extended period of time in quest of a truth-challenged tell-all is something that heartland Trumpservatives will never understand. Steve Bannon had a lot to do with it, and we all know how that turned out.
Unlike the chattering classes who would see traditionalist, sovereign America overrun and enervated in the name of globalism, Trump’s ardent supporters are not interested in gossipy, inconsequential trash-talk among members of the so-called cultural and managerial elite. Who gives a damn what Omarosa Newman or Rupert Murdoch think of the president or vice versa? That Mr. Trump has kept promises and keeps trying to keep promises on issues they care about is what matters.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14209/sweden-self-inflicted-mess
According to an Amnesty International report, in Sweden, rape investigations are under-prioritized, there are “excessively long waiting times for the results of DNA analyses”, there is not enough support for rape victims and not enough work is done for preventative purposes.
In 2017, a Swedish police report, “Utsatta områden 2017”, (“Vulnerable Areas 2017”, commonly known as “no-go zones” or lawless areas) showed that there are 61 such areas in Sweden. They encompass 200 criminal networks, consisting of an estimated 5,000 criminals. Twenty-three of those areas were especially critical….
“I cannot bear to see children faring so badly…. There should be no doubt that the Government does what it can for these children [of ISIS terrorists] and if possible they should be brought to Sweden.” — Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström.
Unfortunately, the horrific fate of enslaved Yazidi children does not appear to be something that Wallström “cannot bear”.
In the picturesque Swedish university city of Uppsala, 80% of girls do not feel safe in the city center. One 14-year old teenager, who is afraid to reveal her identity, told the Swedish media that she always wears trainers so that she can ‘run faster’ if she is attacked:
“I sat down on a bench and immediately guys came and sat next to me on both sides. Then more guys came and stood in front of me. They began to grab my hair and my legs and said things to me that I did not understand. I became so terrified and told them many times to stop, but they did not listen… Everything is so horrible. This is so wrong. I want to be able to feel safe”, she said about taking the bus home.
A recent survey from Region Uppsala shows that only 19% of girls in high school feel safe in the inner city of Uppsala. In 2013, the number was 45%. The men and boys in the gangs that engage in the sexual harassment of Swedish girls in Uppsala are frequently newly-arrived migrants.
https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/europe-starts-to-fray-at-the-seams/
The European parliament elections last week have provided further graphic evidence that Britain and Europe are in the throes of a profound political and cultural upheaval.
In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party pulverized both Labour and the Conservatives by winning many more seats than either to become the largest single party in the European parliament – within just five weeks of being created.
Since Farage’s party stands for Britain leaving the European Union with no withdrawal deal, many Conservatives rightly believe that whoever they elect as their new leader (and therefore Britain’s prime minister) in the wake of Theresa May’s resignation will need to endorse a no-deal departure to have any chance of saving the party from total destruction.
That’s because they understand from this electoral meltdown that the fury of their mainly Brexit-supporting voters over the Conservative government’s failure to honor the 2016 referendum vote, exacerbated by the refusal of the Remainer-dominated parliament to leave with no deal, is off the scale.
Among other EU countries, which are similarly witnessing a revolt by the people against the erosion of their democratic independence and social cohesion, these elections produced a parallel collapse of mainstream parties and a rise of “populist” nationalists.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/05/31/quds-day-rallies-across-mideast-highlight-unbridled-hatred-for-israel-us/
Demonstrators at the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day protests, being held in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and other countries in the region, burn Israeli and American flags while decrying the Trump administration’s peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.
Thousands of Iranians marched on Friday to mark Quds Day, which will see demonstrations across the Mideast as the Trump administration tries to offer an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem, and Iran says the day is an occasion to express support for the Palestinians.
The annual protests, also being held in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere, come on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Iran has marked Quds Day since the start of its 1979 Islamic Revolution by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iran does not recognize Israel and supports the terrorist groups Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/04/in-determined
These are excerpts from a long and brilliant commentary on “modern times”….rsk
“Free trade brings significantly reduced industrial diversity within nations. It brings a loss of skills. It brings entrenched regional unemployment and despair. It brings long and vulnerable supply lines which threaten national security…….Let me be clear, the issue is not one of trade versus protection. It is about the extent to which the interests of all of the citizens of a nation are brought into account by their political representatives when they are eliminating trade barriers. The wholeness, integrity and security of the nation-state should not be bartered away for a mess of pottage…..”
“Refugees are welcome here” is a popular sign held aloft by virtue-signalling do-gooders. Europe takes in many refugees, as do the United States and Australia. (Incidentally, on this criterion, Japan and China are not the least bit virtuous.) Refugees are costly to settle. Many have language difficulties; many are low-skilled, bring culturally-clashing values, and remain a drain on taxpayers and public services. Yet political points are often scored on the “virtue” of bringing in more refugees. Tellingly, refugees are usually settled outside of the enclaves of their enthusiastic supporters.”
“Whatever you think of climate change, the measures to counter it, promoted by its international cheer leaders, are calculated to damage the industrial base and living standards of advanced Western nations. …. Western nations are enjoined to take from their denuded treasury coffers to enrich their poorer cousins. In part, apparently, to expiate their guilt for having in the past put so much life-giving gas (pardon, polluting gas) into the atmosphere.”
“We need to take stock. Politicians and governments have lost sight of whose interests they represent. President Trump is clearly one of the few exceptions. Whether he is renegotiating trade deals, or trying to secure US borders and reform immigration laws, or rolling back onerous environmental regulations, his goal, as he says, is to put America and Americans first. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban is another in the Trump mould. There aren’t many in the West who have not forgotten that their job is govern in the interests of their citizens; all of them, and no one else.”
“We, the people, are not what we used to be. For example, conservative politicians are afraid to call out the cant that surrounds the global warming agenda for fear of electoral retribution. ….And can you ever imagine the utopian (in reality dystopian) drivel in Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal ever seeing the light of day, never mind being supported by prominent Democrats, in a past time when everybody outside of the fringes had common sense? Of course not.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/05/31/britain-should-take-lesson-trump-slash-taxes/
When President Trump arrives on Monday, he will encounter a broken prime minister and an economy stuck in a growth rut. Tory leadership contenders would do well to listen to him, for Trump’s economic policies have achieved what current chancellor Philip Hammond has not.
Look at the contrast. In the first quarter of 2019 the British economy grew at an annualised 2.0pc – the US expanded by 3.2pc. Since 2016, the US economy has grown at 2.55pc a year – the UK averaged 1.6pc. If current rates are maintained, the US will have opened a 4.6pc cumulative growth gap by 2020. What Americans get in four years, Britons will wait seven for.
Leadership election promises of world-class schools and hospitals are a dead letter unless accompanied by fresh thinking to revive economic growth. That requires answering the productivity puzzle: why productivity growth has dwindled to virtually nothing since the crisis. Over the last four years, growth in output per worker in the UK averaged a dismal 0.6pc a year and output per hour actually declined in the last two quarters. Ten-year productivity growth from 2007 was negative for the first time in almost a century.
Weak economic performance demands bold policies. Trump’s explicitly set out to maximise employment, production and purchasing power by, in the words of his 2019 Economic Report, “providing maximum scope for the efficiency of free enterprise and competitive market mechanisms”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/05/30/course-london-no-longer-english-city-rest-country-needs-ever/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget
It was, I suppose, inevitable that John Cleese should get it in the neck for restating the blindingly obvious – that London is no longer an English city. The former Monty Python and Fawlty Towers star was only telling a truth that has long been recognised by foreign tourists, and indeed by just about everyone else with a modicum of worldly awareness.
If you want a picture postcard caricature of what most people think of as England, you are much more likely to find it outside the capital than within the bounds of the M25. London is a global city, with more in common with New York and the other great metropolises of the world than much of its own hinterland.
This is not a particularly new phenomenon; as early as the thirteenth century there are recorded complaints of London as an unrecognisable city, back then on account of supposedly being overrun by Moors. Today they come from all over the world; in my particular borough there are apparently more than 50 spoken languages. We have become a veritable tower of Babel.
To point this out is, however, to invite a tirade of condemnation from all the usual suspects. How dare Mr Cleese say that multicultural London is not England.
Time to get real. On so many levels, it is manifestly obvious that London is a world apart from much of the rest of the country, right down to the great Brexit divide, where support for leaving the European Union is at its highest outside the capital. Most Londoners would by some margin prefer to remain.
