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Ruth King

POLITICS Comments turned off

Buttigieg Proposes National-Service Program to Fight Climate Change, Addiction By Jack Crowe

By on July 3rd, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/buttigieg-proposes-national-service-program-to-fight-climate-change-addiction/

Southbend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday proposed the creation of new voluntary-service programs to combat climate change and increasing rates of mental-health issues, among other objectives.

The plan, released by Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, calls for the recruitment of 250,000 young people in the coming years with a possible expansion to 1 million by 2026. It would expand programs such as AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, while also creating new programs, to fight climate change, treat mental illness, and reduce rates of addiction.

Buttigieg has emphasized the power of national service throughout his upstart bid for the Democratic nomination, returning often to his service as a Naval Reserve officer in Afghanistan during stump speeches and interviews.

“At a moment when our social fabric is being torn apart, where people increasingly only hear voices that are like their own, it’s a really important time to build social capital through giving people opportunities to work in service in ways that are also going to deliver value to the country,” Buttigieg told the New York Times . “I also think you shouldn’t have to go to war to have that experience.”

A spokeswoman for the campaign said the program would cost $20 billion over ten years.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Democrats Embrace Lawlessness at the Border in Response to Family Separations By Jack Crowe

By on July 3rd, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/democrats-embrace-lawlessness-at-the-border-in-response-to-family-separations/

Decriminalizing unauthorized entry as most Democratic presidential candidates propose won’t end the separations; it will only worsen the crisis at our border.

During the first Democratic primary debate last week, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro succeeded in creating the viral moment that all second-tier candidates hope for when he challenged all of his opponents to support the decriminalization of illegal border crossings.

Castro, having deftly identified the separation of migrant families as the issue that has most exercised the Democratic base, stormed into his first debate performance with a ready-made solution: repeal section 1325 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which makes “improper entry” into the U.S. a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, thereby ensuring that no migrants would be detained unless they’d committed another, ostensibly more serious offense.

“The reason that they’re separating these little children from their families is they’re using Section 1325 . . . to incarcerate the parents and then separate them,” Castro said to applause.

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MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

By on July 3rd, 2019

In 1776,  this magnificent document was crafted…..

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Read it all: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

Have a glorious and proud Independence Day!!!! rsk

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

It Wasn’t Force that Made America Great. It Was Freedom By John Stossel

By on July 3rd, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/it-wasnt-force-that-made-america-great-it-was-freedom/

Happy Fourth of July!

We have reason to celebrate.

The Fourth honors the founding of America. It’s the anniversary of the day in 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was approved.

The Declaration was important.

It didn’t say that America would be the best country because it would have the biggest military, toughest leaders, most government giveaways or tightest borders.

The great innovation that day in Philadelphia was the declaration that the United States would have a (SET ITAL)limited(END ITAL) government, rooted in the idea that every individual has inalienable rights.

In other words, we do not get our rights from government. They already exist. The government’s job is to (SET ITAL)protect(END ITAL) our rights.

It’s a good thing to say out loud while watching the fireworks with your family.

The world took notice when American colonists told their king: “Bug off. We will trade with you and respect your borders, but no longer will we allow you to rule us.” Revolutions in France and elsewhere took their cues from America.

It was America’s emphasis on limited government — wanting to make sure no one in government would ever again wield power like that of the British king — that made our revolution the greatest and most lasting success of recent centuries.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Palestinian Authority Hated the Bahrain Conference Because It Was About Helping Palestinians The preferred steady diet of anti-Israel indoctrination. Caroline Glick

By on July 3rd, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274194/palestinian-authority-hated-bahrain-conference-caroline-glick

The Palestinian leadership didn’t boycott the Trump administration’s economic meeting in Bahrain last week because it denied them a future political horizon. They oppose the Trump Prosperity to Peace plan because it gives them an open road to success.

The footage of the administration’s workshop last week on developing the Palestinian economy made for surrealistic viewing. Sitting in Manama, Bahrain, were representatives of most Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Egypt, and Jordan. There were also leaders of international economic institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And there were business leaders from the U.S., the Arab world, and Europe. They were hosted by a U.S. delegation led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, as well as by President Donald Trump’s Middle East negotiations team, headed by senior presidential advisor Jared Kushner and senior presidential advisor for negotiations Jason Greenblatt.

All of these leaders came together to discuss a detailed U.S. plan to bring $50 billion in grants, loans, and investments to the Palestinians in the West Bank, (i.e., Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip, as well as to neighboring Arab states: Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon.

The stated purpose of the plan is to end Palestinian economic privation and suffering by transforming the Palestinian economy from a negative growth, high-unemployment economy into a prosperous high-growth, low-unemployment economy.

Yet despite the money involved and the power the participants packed, the Palestinians didn’t show up. The Palestinian Authority (PA) announced in May that it was boycotting the conference and appealed to all those invited to boycott the conference as well.

After the conference convened last Tuesday, the PA sent mobs out to riot throughout the West Bank. They burned effigies of President Donald Trump. The youth wing of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction called for a renewed terror campaign against Israel. And together with Hamas, Fatah branded Palestinian businessmen who braved the boycott and travelled to Bahrain “traitors” and vowed to punish them “with full force” for their treachery. Indeed, at least one Palestinians businessman who participated in the Bahrain conference was arrested upon returning home. Others escaped arrest by running away from their homes when they were alerted that PA security forces were en route to arrest them.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France: The Real Emmanuel Macron by Guy Millière

By on July 3rd, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14477/real-emmanuel-macron

Charles de Gaulle refused to speak of the many French who had collaborated with the authorities of the German occupation. He refused to commemorate D-Day. He even went on to claim that the Normandy landings had “not been the beginning of the liberation of France,” but “the starting point of an American attempt to colonize France”.

President Emmanuel Macron went one step further, saying that France and Germany should create a European army to “protect themselves against Russia, China, and even the United States”.

France also supported the PLO at a time when it was openly a terrorist movement, unreservedly dedicated to destroying Israel and murdering Jews….. Macron continues the same policy as his predecessors. He never misses an opportunity to invite the current Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to the Elysée Palace and he never forgets to kiss him.

President Donald Trump now knows Macron. Trump probably remembers that during Macron’s visit to Washington 14 months ago, Macron seemed friendly toward him; then, when he went to the Congress, spent his whole speech running down the essential decisions of the Trump administration.

June 6, 2019. Normandy, France. The remains of 9,387 American military dead are buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial; 9238 Latin crosses for Christians and 149 Stars of David for Jews are aligned on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, one of five sectors on the Normandy coast where 132,000 soldiers of the Western allies landed on June 6, 1944. US President Donald J. Trump delivers a speech praising heroism, duty, honor and freedom, and pays tribute to the young Americans who gave their lives; he also speaks of the other soldiers who fought in the Normandy landings: Canadians, British, French. He behaves as a great statesman.

Just before he spoke, French President Emmanuel Macron also paid tribute to those brave soldiers. He added some remarks — that immediately were seen as a way to lecture the American President:

“America is never as great as when it fights for the freedom of others. It is never as great as when it is faithful to the universal values defended by its founding fathers when two and a half centuries ago, France came to support its independence”.

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BOOKS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Crackup of the Israeli Left A new book details how the Left chose to surrender to the Arab enemy. Mark Tapson

By on July 3rd, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274177/crackup-israeli-left-mark-tapson

In recent weeks the mostly left-leaning news media have published articles about the turbulence of this year’s elections in Israel with such handwringing titles as “Is the Israeli left doomed to marginalisation?,” “The Decline of the Israeli Left,” and “Whatever Happened to the Israeli Left?” But if one really wants to educate oneself deeply and broadly about this shift in the tiny democracy’s political landscape, one can hardly do better than to read Mordechai Nisan’s new book, The Crack-Up of the Israeli Left, published by Mantua Books. In it, Dr. Nisan brilliantly dissects the rise of the Right and the decline of the Left in the Jewish state. To quote from the book cover’s description, it details how “the Left detached its moorings from reality and principle, raised its voice against the Zionist enterprise, and chose surrender to the Arab enemy.”

If anyone is qualified to expound upon Israel’s political and cultural battlegrounds, it’s Mordechai Nisan. Dr. Nisan (with a doctorate in Political Studies from McGill University) has been a teacher and consultant for a number of academic and public institutions in Israel, including Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he taught Middle East Studies for 35 years. Among his many books are Toward a New Israel: The Jewish State and the Arab Question (1992), Only Israel West of the River: The Jewish State and the Palestinian Question (2011), and Politics and War in Lebanon (2015). He has written articles for The Jerusalem Post, Israel National News, Global Affairs, Middle East Journal, and many other publications. He has also been an activist for Jewish settlement in the territories of Judea and Samaria.

Dr. Nisan was kind enough to take time to answer some questions for FrontPage Mag.

Mark Tapson: You begin your book by describing Israel as “a fable and a myth, but also a Great Truth.” What do you mean by that?

Mordechai Nisan: Myth as an expression of inner thoughts and memories mobilizes people to action. Fables arouse children’s imagination, as myths do for adults. Israel was born from a great myth rooted in the Biblical story of liberation and conquest, awakening the Jewish people to relive their past through the medium of Zionism and reconstituting their freedom and sovereignty in modern times. This is a revitalized myth actualizing an ancient truth of God and Jewish peoplehood in history.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bearing False Witness How the Anti-Defamation League conspired to have a critic investigated for a fake hate crime. Ilya Feoktistov

By on July 3rd, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274154/bearing-false-witness-ilya-feoktistov

On the morning of February 25, 2019, two prominent leaders of the New England Jewish community walked into a Boston police station to report that I had committed an anti-Jewish hate crime against both of them by threatening them with bodily harm. Robert Trestan, the New England regional executive director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Jeremy Burton, the executive director of Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), told the police that I was motivated by anti-Jewish bias, and that they were in fear for their physical safety as a result.

But, when Boston Police Department (BPD) detectives spoke to my attorney, Jewish civil rights advocate Karen Hurvitz, they were surprised to learn that I myself am Jewish and that, like Trestan and Burton, I am the executive director of a Jewish 501(c)(3) non-profit, Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), which confronts anti-Jewish bias as part of its primary mission.

In these troubled times, law enforcement cannot take reports of violent threats against Jewish leaders lightly. The level of urgency was upped several notches in this case because Messrs. Trestan and Burton, as prominent civic leaders in New England, have close personal relationships with Boston’s chief of police and mayor, the Suffolk County district attorney, the local U.S. Attorney’s office, and the governor of Massachusetts, among others. Mr. Trestan is a civil rights attorney, had advised the Obama White House on countering violent extremism, was honored by the Boston Police Foundation, and currently sits on the governor’s Task Force on Hate Crimes. Galvanized by the threat of prominent Jewish leaders being targeted by a dangerous criminal, scarce police resources were immediately mobilized to investigate the alleged threats.

Once the BPD detectives learned that I was a Jewish community leader, they were, understandably, confused as to why two Jewish executive directors would call the cops on another one and falsely accuse him of an anti-Jewish hate crime. My attorney explained the likely motive: my recent article in The Federalist, in which I was highly critical of Trestan and Burton’s leadership. The article criticized Trestan and Burton for politicizing the Boston Jewish community’s vigil for the victims of the 2018 Pittsburg synagogue massacre by turning it into an anti-Trump resistance rally.

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

On Moving to the Wacky, Wacky West By David Solway

By on July 3rd, 2019

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

Now that my wife and I are moving to Vancouver on the west coast of Canada, I’ve begun thinking about the prospects, literary and political, that await us. We had no option in the matter, family obligations having trumped prior intentions. Life, as they say, happens while you plan. Still, the dwelling we bought on Westminster Quay bordering the Fraser River is ideal from the perspective of sheer beauty, the expansive view, the vivacity of river and boardwalk life, and a far less punishing climate than the iron winters and mosquito-infested summers of rural Ontario. But it must be admitted that the political and cultural climate is gruesome. Though we have good friends and know of many admirable people living in la-la land, the West Coast of Canada, like that of the U.S., is for the most part where the lunatic fringe makes its home.

The Gulf Islands, for example, just off the littoral of British Columbia, are a hotbed of social justice warriors, medullary lefties and a clique of novelists and poets whose literary productions would bring any self-respecting country into terminal disrepute. Whole districts of Vancouver itself might be renamed Needle City, swarming with junkies, pushers and spaced-out derelicts, to such an extent that first responders and ambulances struggle to serve other citizens. Moreover, social welfare governments issue asymmetrical budgets favoring the parasitical class at the expense of laboring citizens — West Coast economic thinking with a vengeance.

A litre of gas is equivalent to a mortgage. The land transfer tax for buying a house and for the privilege of contributing to the economy of the region is, in our case, $9000, over and above the cost of purchasing the dwelling. The job-creating oil pipelines are stalled by the social justice types and the leftist NGOs. Clearly, the vast substratum of freeloaders, idlers, sycophants and, well, coasters constitute the growing profiteering class like a colony of aphid-milking ants.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Kamala 2020 Makes Obama 2008 Look Positively Right Wing John Merline

By on July 3rd, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/03/kamala

With the first primary still eight long months away, making any sort of prediction about the Democratic candidates is pointless. Nevertheless, some have noticed an interesting parallel shaping up, one that involves an old Democrat with plenty of establishment backing and a formidable lead in the polls, and a young, biracial newcomer with a winning smile and an exotic first name.

Except that where Barack Obama tried to portray himself as a sensible centrist in 2008, Sen. Kamala Harris is among the most radical in the large crop of far-left Democratic candidates hoping to run against President Trump. 

Consider the striking contrast between positions Obama espoused and those Harris has embraced.

In 2008, Obama complained about “the orgy of spending” under President George W. Bush. He pledged that all his spending plans would be more than offset with expenditure reductions.

“What I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut,” he said.

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