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Ruth King

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Time to end Washington’s Use and Abuse Policy towards the Kurds… by Gerald A. Honigman

By on January 26th, 2019

President Trump’s recent decision to withdraw forces from Syria, along with a 21st century would-be Turkish Sultan, President Erdogan’s, apparent aim to re-create part of the Ottoman Empire, have quickly led to disturbing consequences. More are sure to follow…

Over a dozen Americans and allies were killed by ISIS on January 17th in response to President Trump’s plan. The aim was to further demoralize our troops and Kurds who’ve done most of the fighting and dying for us for a half century now.

The arena is largely part ofgeographical Kurdistan, mostly mountainous regions of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, where Kurds–as the Bible’s Hurrians; Gutian conquerors of Babylon; (probably) Medes; and others–pre-date Arab and Turkish imperial conquerors by millennia.

Kurds have had their language and culture outlawed by Arabs and Turks, while hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered.

In the wake of the collapse of empires in the early 20th century, while Arabs wound up with almost two dozen states (most forcibly Arabized from non-Arabpeoples), some 38 million Kurds remain stateless to date–frequently at others’ mercy.On September 9, 2018, The Jerusalem Post reported a precision Iranian ballistic missile strike on Iraqi Kurds. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was sending a message to others besides Kurds with this attack.

Like Tehran’s centuries’ old rivals–Turks and Arabs–the one thing all agree upon is denial of political (even basic human) rights to millions of Kurds who pre-date the latter two in their region by millennia.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Stone Indictment Underscores That There Was No Trump-Russia Conspiracy By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on January 26th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/roger-stone-indictment-underscores-no-trump-russia-conspiracy/

Will the Justice Department ever correct the record?

R oger Stone is the shiny object. The obstruction charges in his long-anticipated indictment, made public on Friday, are not the matter of consequence for the United States.

Nor is the critical thing the indictment’s implicit confirmation that there was no criminal “collusion” conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

What matters is this: The indictment is just the latest blatant demonstration that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, the Department of Justice, and the FBI have known for many months that there was no such conspiracy. And yet, fully aware that the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the FBI had assiduously crafted a public narrative that Trump may have been in cahoots with the Russian regime, they have allowed that cloud of suspicion to hover over the presidency — over the Trump administration’s efforts to govern — heedless of the damage to the country.

The rationale for the Trump-Russia investigation — namely, the notion that the Trump campaign had “coordinated” in the Kremlin’s cyber-espionage operation to meddle in the 2016 campaign — has been nothing more than a suspicion harbored by political, law-enforcement, and intelligence officials who loathed Donald Trump. That there may be a thousand good reasons to dislike Donald Trump is irrelevant, for we are talking about investigations, not politics. Investigative suspicions must be rooted in fact, not contempt.

Not only was the suggestion of a Trump-Russia conspiracy not founded on fact. The officials calling the shots had reason to know that the premise was factually false. In truth, there was no evidence of Trump-campaign complicity in Russian espionage — nothing but the Clinton-campaign generated, unverified Steele dossier. The months-in-the-making Stone indictment is just the latest proof of that.

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MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Media’s Selective Curiosity By Carson Holloway

By on January 26th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/25/the-medias-

Members of the mainstream media understandably resent President Trump’s description of them as purveyors of “fake news.” After all, they do the public a service by reporting a great deal of true and relevant information. And when they get the facts wrong, they usually correct the record.

Nevertheless, the president’s criticisms of the media resonate with many Americans. For them, the “news” industry is “fake” not in the sense that it tells nothing but falsehoods, but rather in the sense that its self-presentation is fake or phony. The media claim to be disinterested reporters of the facts, but their behavior shows they are far more interested in some facts than in others. This suggests that their main concern is not in uncovering the truth but in telling a certain kind of story.

The “fake news” charge sticks not because of the media’s mendacity but because of their selective curiosity.

Nowhere has that selective curiosity been more evident than in the coverage of the biggest news story of the last two years: the supposed complicity of Trump and his campaign in Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. From top to bottom, this story has been shaped powerfully by mainstream news organizations’ extreme lack of interest in certain questions that objectively are interesting and important.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who Leaked the Bogus WikiLeaks Email About Don Jr.? By Julie Kelly

By on January 26th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/25/who-leaked-the

The Trump presidential campaign’s alleged ties to WikiLeaks have been a pivotal piece of the Trump-Russia “collusion” story since the beginning. In order to mitigate the damage to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy after WikiLeaks in July 2016 released damning emails swiped from the Democratic National Committee’s server, Clinton’s team skillfully changed the subject by claiming Russia was behind the hack and suggested the Trump campaign had a hand in it, too.

WikiLeaks is back in the news for two reasons. First is the arrest on Friday of former Trump associate Roger Stone, who Special Counsel Robert Mueller alleges made false statements about his communications with the group.

Second, and far more interesting, is renewed allegations by Donald Trump, Jr. that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) leaked details about Don Jr.’s contact with WikiLeaks during the campaign—information that was erroneous and resulted in major correction by CNN, the news organization that first reported the bogus story.

In an interview with Fox News last week, Don Jr. said “there’s a 99.9 percent chance” that Schiff was “the guy that was leaking my testimony as I was testifying.”

“I came out of testimony at about 8 o’clock looking [at my phone] and CNN is running quotes from noon on about my testimony . . . I would bet a lot of money it was him.”

For more than a year, the people who leaked unauthorized information about Don Jr.’s closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on December 6, 2017, have not been officially identified, let alone punished. It is just one more frustrating example of how government insiders, in collaboration with their accomplices in the press, escape accountability for their role in perpetuating a seditious plot to take down a presidency.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Alan Dershowitz Slams ‘Typical Mueller Indictment,’ Says Crimes ‘Generated by the Investigation’ By Debra Heine

By on January 26th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/video/alan-dershowitz-slams-typical-mueller-indictment-says-crimes-generated-by-the-investigation/

“America’s Newsroom” Friday, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said the indictment of former Trump adviser Roger Stone is a “typical Mueller indictment,” full of “stories” of Russian collusion, but with actual charges being the result of the investigation.

Stone was arrested during an early morning FBI raid at his house in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and indicted on charges of obstruction, making false statements, and witness tampering as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

“This is typical of Mueller. He has found almost no crimes that occurred before he was appointed special counsel,” Dershowitz explained, adding that Mueller was appointed to find Russian collusion and has “virtually failed in that respect in every regard.”

“Almost all of his crimes that he’s indicted people for are crimes that resulted from his investigation — false statements, tampering with witnesses, obstruction of justice,” Dershowitz pointed out. “These are crimes that are generated by the investigation,” which, he noted, “doesn’t make them any less criminal.”

“But it really means that there’s been a failure to uncover the basic crimes for which he was appointed. Namely, before he was appointed, was there illegal collusion, illegal conspiracy with Russia?” Dersh asked.

“We don’t find that,” the professor declared. “In this indictment, he tells stories about alleged collusion, stories about WikiLeaks, but that’s not the basis for the indictment. The basis for the indictment are all events that occurred after he was appointed. That’s very significant.”

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Honoring Country (Music) By David Solway

By on January 26th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/honoring_country_music.html

Country music has almost always been counter-counter-culture. Country music honors ancestors and traditions, while hardcore rocker bands like Stick To Your Guns glorify felons Eric Garner, Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin, the ludicrously named Prophets of Rage mock “the chosen whites” who “wear[ ] badges” (“Killing In The Name”), and Vampire Weekend and Foster the People shill for socialist retread Bernie Sanders.

Often featuring sharp and witty lyrics and hummable tunes, Country fosters a patriotic love of the land and its people, and displays a spirit of proud independence. As such, it is among the most engaging of musical idioms. It is at its purest an amalgam of swagger and humility. True, its subject matter can’t help but touch the world out there and can’t help but convey attitudes and beliefs, often of a patriotic nature, but it is certainly not an agenda-driven program for incendiary or subversive or revolutionary change. It purveys no drummingly sociopolitical message. Rather, Country in its essence expresses natural and universal feelings of love and home and basic human experience — “the basics of love,” as Waylon Jennings put it in “Luckenbach, Texas.” Anchored in everyday life, it does not hector or seek to persuade but treats of perennial themes while retaining a distinctive artistry in melody and lyric.

As Alan Jackson sings in his haunting 9/11 requiem, Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning, he is not “a real political man,” unlike the smug patricians of the reigning Western cultural elite. Jackson’s elegy for Hank Williams, “Midnight in Montgomery,” is unforgettably poignant and as unpolitical as it can get, very much like Williams’ signature “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Williams is reputed to have said: “God writes the songs. I just hold the pen” — a way of articulating a felt truth and a welcome antitoxin to the malignant spirit of decay and subversion that has permeated the cultural, political and institutional life of America today. Such cultural decadence is the reason why so much of its music is trash.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s Kidnapping Industry British Mother Held in Prison by Majid Rafizadeh

By on January 26th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13542/iran-kidnapping-hostages

This international breach of justice should be a lesson to the UK and other governments: It does not matter if the mullahs reach out their hands out in peace; the Islamist regime of Iran will continue to harm innocent victims on a daily basis.

In response to the snub, the British government should consider bringing to a halt its appeasement policies toward the ruling mullahs. The more they are appeased, the more emboldened and empowered they become to continue violating human rights.

It must be made clear to Iran that, apart from its unacceptable nuclear and ballistic missile build up, the UK — and every country — will also not stand for the capture, torture and imprisonment of the innocent. If the British government speaks in actions rather than words, perhaps these captives could be free to resume the life they deserve again, and the world could be free of a major nuclear threat.

“Sometimes when I come back from the visit with Gabriella, after saying goodbye to her, I feel as if I cannot live without her, I want to go back and hold her. She kisses me so hard. It is hard to say goodbye to her. She blows kisses all the way as she goes up the stairs, and everyone stands there watching.” These are the words of a grieving British mother, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, held in prison in the Islamic Republic of Iran, as she describes saying goodbye to her child.

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Never Look Away – A Review By Marilyn Penn

By on January 26th, 2019

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/topic/politics/

If you happen to be a 6′9″ inch German man named Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck, it’s not surprising that you would be comfortable with an oversized movie that plays longer than Gone With the Wind. At over 3 hrs, the film needs editing and shortening but if you cut it to 2 1/2 hrs., you’d have a minor masterpiece. Even in its present frame, it’s a powerful and moving experience merging World War II with post-war communist Germany seen through the filter of a budding artist searching for his authentic and singular form of expression.

It begins with a visit to the Degenerate Art Exhibition organized by the Nazis against Jewish artists and others who defied classical standards. A beautiful young woman accompanies her very young nephew who loves to draw and we quickly learn of her quirkiness and his talent – two themes that are harbingers of his and her life stories. Hitler’s arm rapidly extends from art to disabled and mentally deficient people and the lovely but erratic Elisabeth is first hospitalized until more drastic measures are taken. As the young boy, Kurt, grows up, we see the further damage that Nazi control wreaks on his family, but he remains dedicated to becoming an artist and enrolls in a school in Dusseldorf where he is exposed to all the trendy aspects of the art world in the 60’s and 70’s, trying desperately to determine how he can contribute something original to a very crowded and chaotic scene.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

How Real Is Systemic Racism Today? written by John Staddon

By on January 25th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/01/25/how-real-is-systemic

John Staddon is a James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Professor of Biology, Emeritus, at Duke University.

Racist attitudes of whites towards blacks have long become socially unacceptable in America, although the reverse, racism of a minority directed at the white majority, is still tolerated or even encouraged. However, statistical racial disparities persist. African Americans, as a population, continue to suffer income, crime and incarceration rate, health, housing and family-structure deficits by comparison with the white population.

These disparities cannot easily be attributed to racist behavior by whites. The disparities have either increased or remained the same while individual racist behavior has declined. What then is the cause of these disparities? There are two possibilities: causes within individuals, what I have elsewhere called endogenous causes; or external, exogenous causes.

Endogenous Causes of Black-White Disparities

Endogenous causes were in fact the first ones to be studied, with unfortunate results. Bigots stigmatized the entire “black race” as inferior because of lower average scores on, for example, IQ tests. Blacks’ under-performance in terms of status, health, incomes, etc. was then comfortably attributed to their alleged built-in inadequacy.

The usual presumption was that IQ is fixed at birth, that it is the most important factor in life success and that it cannot be altered by later experience. None of these is true; although the fixity-of-IQ view seemed to be supported by several studies showing relatively high (statistical) heritability for IQ. But heritable is not the same as fixed: high statistical heritability for a behavioral trait does not imply that it is fixed at birth and independent of the rearing environment. Language is the most obvious counter-example. It is a learned behavior that also has high heritability. Language is 100 percent learned and 100 percent heritable—kids learn the language of their parents.

The only reason we know that language is not a sort of instinct is the “natural experiments” provided by adoption. Despite the high heritability of language, adopted infants learn the language of their adoptive, not biological, parents. It follows that high heritability does not mean genetic determinism. Statistical heritability depends on rearing environment as well as genetics.

What kind of experiment would be needed to prove that intelligence, which is also (statistically) heritable, is in fact genetically determined? What would it take to show that there are irreducible average-IQ differences between races: that no matter how rich the environment, blacks and whites would still have differing average IQ, leaving genes as the only cause? Only a very elaborate, unethical, and in practice un-doable, experiment could do it.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel gives Irish ambassador severe dressing down for ‘anti-Semitic’ Dáil Bill Israel says Dublin should concentrate on ‘dark dictatorships’ Mark Weiss

By on January 25th, 2019

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/israel-gives-irish-ambassador-severe-dressing-down-for-anti-semitic-d%C3%A1il-bill-1.3770529

Irish ambassador to Israel Alison Kelly has been warned of “serious consequences” for Irish-Israel relations and Dublin’s standing in the region if the controversial Bill prohibiting importing goods from the occupied territories in Palestine becomes law.

The ministry said Ms Kelly was given an “angry rebuke” over the “scandalous” Bill. The severe diplomatic dressing down at the foreign ministry in Jerusalem on Friday morning followed Thursday’s passage of the first reading of the measure in the Dáil.

The Israeli government described the Bill, which covers goods produced on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Golan Heights and in east Jerusalem, as “hypocritical and anti-Semitic.”

Israeli officials told the ambassador that Dublin should “concentrate on dark dictatorships and terrorist organisations instead of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.”

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