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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obvious Double Standard On Recusals Proves Russia Probe Is About Getting Trump By Adam Mill

By on November 15th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/15/obvious-double-standard-recusals-proves-muller-probe-getting-trump/
Don’t bother reading the underlying rules on conflict of interest, because there’s only one test that matters: Would the recusal help get Trump?

The installation of Matthew Whitaker as the acting attorney general has the recusal pundits barking like shelter dogs in the presence of a trespassing squirrel. In case you’re wondering how the recusal rules work, it’s simply a matter of whether it helps or hurts Trump.

Don’t believe me? See if you can detect a pattern. Since Whitaker might reign in the special counsel, he must be recused, they argue. Similarly, when it appeared former attorney general Jeff Sessions might help Trump, he acceded to demands he recuse himself. But Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is a proven thorn in the president’s side with an obvious conflict of interest, so no demands for recusal there.

Judge Rudy Contreras’s friendship with disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page at the same time he was reviewing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications from Strzok did not require recusal from considering the application. But the Trump appointee with authority to consider a search warrant of Trump’s lawyer’s private office was recused, leading to the raid to look for evidence that likely could have been obtained by subpoena.

The recusal pundits called for the recusal of newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh because he might side with the president in future cases. Yet when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg calls Trump a “faker” and openly expresses dismay at the prospect of his presidency, she need not recuse. Don’t bother reading the underlying rules on conflict of interest, because there’s only one test that matters: Would the recusal help get Trump?

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MEDIA, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why I Am No Longer a Canadian Writer By David Solway

By on November 15th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/why-i-am-no-longer-a-canadian-writer/

Long ago, in another life, I belonged to the Union of Canadian Writers and was a member in good standing of PEN Canada. I’m can’t recall why I originally joined these guilds since I generally shun collectives of any sort. I believe I may have responded to an invitation or the urging of friends, not wanting to seem churlish. I never threw in my lot with what would have been my natural home, The League of Canadian Poets, an outfit which arranged for readings across the country and facilitated the distribution of grants and perks to its members.

With respect to the Union, I attended a couple of meetings, which I found somewhat off-putting for all the trade talk, affected posturing and conversational bromides that dominated the proceedings. Literature was the one thing that never seemed to come up. Regarding PEN, I discovered its agenda was pro-Palestinian and perforce anti-Israeli, which I could not accept. In time, I drifted away from these dreary bastions of political correctness.

All this was several years ago but attitudes haven’t changed much in the interim. Canadian writers have for the most part tracked so far left that they have disappeared from the frame of reasoned discourse. An ongoing cause célèbre is the virulent denunciation of Donald Trump and his populist revolution. Most of the poets, novelists, essayists and journalists I know, had they been Americans, would have voted Hillary. Today they would be big fans of Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, Cory Booker and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and would certainly have swum a hoped-for Blue Wave in the Congressional elections, as they went Liberal red in Canada.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

David Goldman: A Review of Patricia O’Toole’s “The Moralist”- a Bio of Woodrow Wilson

By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/the-great-resenter/

THE GREAT RESENTER

Patricia O’Toole’s The Moralist is yet another hagiographic account of the mission and martyrdom of Woodrow Wilson, the patron saint of American internationalists. With minor variations, O’Toole sticks to the Received Account as told by John Milton Cooper in Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (2009) and by A. Scott Berg in Wilson (2013). In this view, the 28th president came close to ushering in the millennium after World War I, but his prickly self-righteousness lost the great moment. Under the diabolic influence of Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, the story goes, the Senate refused to ratify the League of Nations treaty that Wilson had brought back from the Versailles Peace Conference. Wilson then destroyed his health in a desperate effort to persuade the American public about the League, and the world plunged back into a dark age of atavistic nationalism. O’Toole, whose previous books include biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams, thinks of Wilson as a moralist rather than a politician, and attributes his failure to a combination of excessive high-mindedness and an inadequate blood flow to the brain that ultimately led to his incapacitating stroke in October 1919. She deduces the latter from the translucence of the president’s ears upon his return from Versailles.

It is quite wrong to speak, as this book’s subtitle does, of the world that Woodrow Wilson made, for he made no world at all; he merely signed the Versailles Treaty by which Britain’s David Lloyd George and France’s Georges Clemenceau turned the Great War into the opening salvo of a new Thirty Years’ War. So utterly utopian was Wilson’s vision that it is unfair to characterize the internationalism of Bill Clinton or George W. Bush as “Wilsonian.” Clinton and Bush threw America’s weight around after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but they did not propose—as Wilson did—to replace America’s sovereign decision-making with a global council. Wilson’s League of Nations was closer to the conspiracy theorists’ notion of the United Nations. The commonplace belief that minor concessions on his part would have won ratification of the League of Nations treaty is untenable.

* * *

Wilson was a latecomer to the matter of collective security. William Howard Taft, whom he defeated in the 1912 presidential election, formed the League to Enforce Peace in 1915, which proposed a collective security agreement that pledged members to arbitration and to wield economic and military force against aggressors. Wilson’s nemesis of 1919, Henry Cabot Lodge, endorsed Taft’s League the following year, remarking that “[p]robably it will be impossible to stop all wars, but it certainly will be possible to stop some wars and thus diminish their number.” Wilson at that time still was reluctant to enter World War I, to the frustration of hawks like Theodore Roosevelt.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum Will restraint be Netanyahu’s downfall? He is an elected official, after all, not a king. The Israeli public is his boss, not the other way around. Ruthie Blum

By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.jns.org/opinion/will-restraint-be-netanyahus-downfall/

Addressing his controversial decision to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas following more than 24 hours of incessant mortar, rocket and missile fire from Gaza into southern Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained:

“In normal times, a leader must be attentive to the hearts of the people, and our people are wise. But in times of crisis, when making critical decisions in the field of security, the public cannot always be a partner in the crucial considerations that must be concealed from the enemy. At these moments, leadership is not to do the easy thing; leadership is to do the right thing, even if it is difficult. Leadership is sometimes facing criticism when you know confidential and sensitive information that you cannot share with the citizens of Israel, and in this case with the residents of the south, whom I love and appreciate greatly.”

Netanyahu made these statements on Wednesday at a memorial service for David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, whose tough leadership and party’s 30-year domination kept him at the country’s helm for longer than any of his successors thus far.

Almost simultaneously, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced his resignation, on the grounds that Netanyahu had ignored his objections to the ceasefire and “capitulated to terrorists.”

This is the same Netanyahu who, while in Paris on Sunday—where he joined world leaders in marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I—likened Hamas to ISIS and said: “There no diplomatic solution to Gaza.”

The hours following Lieberman’s figurative bombshell were spent more on media analysis of Israel’s internecine political strife and on Netanyahu’s chances for surviving an early election than on the literal explosive havoc wreaked by Hamas on the Jewish communities in rocket range of Gaza.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Brazil’s Exceptional President Srdja Trifkovic

By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2018/December/43/12/magazine/article/10845837/

Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential election in Brazil on October 28 with 55 percent of the vote. The former army captain triumphed over Fernando Haddad of the leftist Workers’ Party pledging to fight crime and corruption, to end affirmative action for “disadvantaged minorities,” and to shatter the straitjacketed discourse on race and sexuality. The leader of the fourth-largest democracy has vowed to uphold traditional family, patriotism, Christian faith, and law and order.

From the standpoint of the Western elite, Bolsonaro’s views are beyond the pale.

“I will not fight nor discriminate,” he said in 2002, “but if I see two men kissing in the street, I’ll hit them.”

“I’m homophobic, yes,” he reiterated some years later, “and very proud of it if it is to defend children in schools.”

“I’d rather have my son die in an accident,” he declared in 2010, “than show up with some mustachioed guy!”

“Brazil is a Christian country,” Bolsonaro insists. “God above everyone! It is not this story, this little story of secular state. It is a Christian state, and if a minority is against it, then move!”

What would he do if his son fell in love with a black woman? The question was put to Bolsonaro in 2011. “I do not run that risk as my children were very well raised,” he replied. In 2017, he promised to end all indigenous and slave-descended quota programs. “Has anyone ever seen a Japanese begging for charity?” he asked. Of course not, “because it’s a race that has shame. It’s not like this race that’s down here, or like a minority ruminating here on the side.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sen. Mike Lee: A conservative case for criminal justice reform

By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sen-mike-lee-a-conservative-case-for-criminal-justice-reform

“Government’s first duty,” President Reagan said in 1981 and President Trump recently tweeted, “is to protect the people, not run their lives.” The safety of law-abiding citizens has always been a core principle of conservatism. And it is why we need to take this opportunity to pass real criminal-justice reform now.

Although violent crime rose during the final two years of President Obama’s time in office, it decreased during the first year of Trump’s presidency. We need to keep that momentum going. And criminal justice reform can help us do that in two ways.

First, commonsense sentencing reform can increase trust in the criminal-justice system, thus making it easier for law enforcement personnel to police communities. Right now, federal mandatory-minimum sentences for many drug offenses can lead to outcomes that strike many people as unfair, and thus undermine the public’s faith in our justice system.

For example, when I served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Salt Lake City, Weldon Angelos — a young father of two with no criminal record — was convicted of selling three dime bags of marijuana to a paid informant over a short period of time.

These were not violent crimes. No one was hurt. But because Angelos had been in possession of a gun at the time he sold the drugs (a gun which was neither brandished nor discharged in connection with the offense), the judge was forced by federal law to give him a 55-year prison sentence. The average federal sentence for assault is just two years. The average murderer only gets 15 years. While acknowledging the obvious excessiveness of the sentence, the judge explained that the applicable federal statutes gave him no authority to impose a less-severe prison term, noting that “only Congress can fix this problem.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Sen. Kamala Harris draws comparison between ICE and KKK By Stephen Dinan

By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/15/kamala-harris-draws-comparison-between-ice-and-kkk/
– The Washington Times – Thursday, November 15, 2018

Senate Democrats compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan Thursday, saying the agency’s deportation officers have earned an evil perception among “many” people, and it’s up to the acting chief to change that.

“Do you see any parallels?” Sen. Kamala Harris asked of Ronald D. Vitiello, the acting director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, during a confirmation hearing for his nomination to become permanent director.

Mr Vitiello flatly rejected the comparison, saying there was no parallel, and demanded to know whether the senator was really trying to draw an equivalency.

The exchange was spurred by a series of questions Ms. Harris asked related to a social media post Mr. Vitiello made early this decade referring to the Democratic Party as “neo-Klanist.” He apologized for the post, calling it an attempt at a joke that he now realizes was hurtful and inappropriate.

“It was wrong to do,” he said.

Ms. Harris, though, asked him why the words were wrong, and he said it was because of the history of the KKK using violence and intimidation to achieve its social aims. That’s when the senator said the same perception exists of ICE.

“I see no perception that puts ICE in the same category as the KKK,” Mr. Vitiello retorted.

Ms. Harris’s line of questions drew a rebuke from Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Ilhan Omar Shows Dems Aren’t Interested In Confronting Anti-Semitism David Harsanyi

By on November 15th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/14/ilhan-omars-election-suggests-democrats-arent-interested-in-confronting-anti-semitism/

Ilhan Omar, one of the first of two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, is a new kind of politician. She’s telegenic. Ideologically progressive. Widely celebrated by a media that’s obsessed with identity politics. She’s the kind of politician who can openly side with Hamas against Israel or spread “Protocols of Zion”-style conspiracies on Twitter, claiming that Jews possess the supernatural ability to hypnotize the world as they unfurl their “evil.”

It’s not surprising, then, that Omar also supports the “boycott, divestment and sanctions” movement (BDS). In a statement to the website Muslim Girl (later confirmed elsewhere), someone on Omar’s staff explains that, yes, “Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.”

So, although Omar contends that BDS will be ineffective in getting the sides to “a lasting solution,” she stills “believes in and supports” a movement that smears the Jewish state as a racist endeavor and aims to destroy it economically. It’s a mystery, is it not, why some Jews might find that positioning offensive?

Omar has supported BDS for a while, even though she will now occasionally slip in some platitudes about the peace process. As Scott Johnson of Power Line (who’s been following this story from the beginning) points out, Omar misled Jewish voters in her district, obfuscating about her position and, as she still does, conflating her support for BDS with a bill that would have stopped continued taxpayer funding of the movement. No one is attempting to “criminalize” anti-Israel speech, although it’s heartening to see Omar is a free-speech absolutist. We’ll see if her position on the “criminalization” of speech will remain consistent moving forward, and not reserved for supporters of Hamas.

As far as I know, not even former congressman Keith Ellison, who once accused the shifty Jews of running American foreign policy, openly supported the BDS movement. Not even J-Street, the progressive front for hard-left activists posing as Israel supporters, openly backed BDS. Nor does George Soros, although he has intermittently funded BDS groups in the past and has been active against the Jewish state for years.

Of course, BDS proponents will tell you they are anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. But when you’re fixated on the only liberal state in the Middle East, and avoid criticism of any Islamic regimes that deny their own citizens the most basic of human rights, you, at the very least, betray a morally bankrupt position. Even as Hamas rains hundreds of rockets down on civilians—a nihilistic project that always takes precedent over investing in their own people in their own autonomous Palestinian territory—there is criticism from those who only see evil behind Jewish acts of self-defense.

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HOMELAND SECURITY, MEDIA Comments turned off

“Islamophobia” Outbreak in California A Muslim was found with a Qur’an, a book on terrorism, and a sawed-off rifle. What else could this be but “Islamophobia”? Robert Spencer

By on November 15th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271950/islamophobia-outbreak-california-robert-spencer

The San Francisco Chronicle has discovered a case of “Islamophobia,” and their intrepid reporters are on the job: “An Alameda County prosecutor,” we’re told, “recently held up an unusual piece of evidence while arguing that a man charged with a weapons violation should remain jailed without bail: a Quran.”

It seems that “the religious text, paired with a book on the psychology of terrorism, as well as a sawed-off rifle — all allegedly found in Dajon Ford’s car at the time of his arrest — was cause for concern, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Golde told Superior Court Judge Yolanda Northridge at an Oct. 19 bail hearing.”

Golde, says the Chronicle, asked rhetorically: “What are his plans?” According to the paper, “the Quran was cited among several arguments Golde made suggesting Ford was a threat to the community, in addition to noting his previous criminal history.” But the predictable response has come: “the move has drawn heat from at least one local civil rights attorney, and stunned defense attorney Claire White, who called Golde’s line of questioning ‘racist’ and ‘Islamaphobic [sic].’”

White complained that Golde’s mention of the Qur’an “allows the discussion on public safety to turn not on what actual facts are, and more on fears and prejudices.” And in a blandly reported conflict of interest that appears to have made no difference in the treatment of this case, the Chronicle reports that “White said Ford’s books came from the library of her and her late husband, Dr. Prince White, who was the program and police campaign coordinator for the Urban Peace Movement, a civil rights organization that had worked with Ford in the past.”

Why did Golde mention that Ford had a Qur’an? He rightly explained: “I brought out everything that was there and the judge made the decision, and the judge made the decision based on public safety.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Maybe We Could Use a Civic Hippocratic Oath By Victor Davis Hanson

By on November 15th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/15/maybe

A mob of protesters associated with the radical left-wing group Antifa swarmed the private residence of Fox News host Tucker Carlson on the night of Nov. 7. They yelled, “Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!” The mob’s apparent aim was to catch Carlson’s family inside and so terrify them that he might temper his conservative views. Only Carlson’s wife was home at the time. She locked herself in a pantry and called police.

During the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, demonstrators disrupted the proceedings and stalked senators. Later, a mob broke through police barricades to pound on the doors of the Supreme Court while Kavanaugh was preparing to be sworn in. Their agenda apparently was to create such confusion and disorder that the nomination might be postponed.

Hollywood celebrities habitually boast of wanting to shoot, blow up or decapitate President Donald Trump. Apparently their furor is meant to lower the bar of violence so that Trump fears for his personal safety and therefore might silence or change his views.

Few of these protesters fear any legal consequences when they violate the law. Nor do those who disrupt public officials at restaurants, stalk them on their way to work or post their private information on the internet.

Yet most Americans are tired of hearing the lame excuses that the protesters’ supposedly noble ends justify their unethical or illegal means to achieve them.

On the other hand, the public does not wish to curb free speech or our First Amendment rights of expression. Journalists certainly have the right to unprofessionally lecture and sermonize instead of just posing questions to public officials. But they still set a poor example of journalistic behavior and disinterested reporting while confirming the public’s low esteem for their entire profession.

Most people do not believe that the overseers of Facebook, Google and Twitter possess either the wisdom or the ethics to censor the sort of social media that most people find objectionable. Yet the pubic tires of the anonymous hitmen on social media who post vicious lies to ruin the reputations of their perceived enemies.

The trick, then, is to distinguish between illegal behavior (which should be prosecuted) and improper behavior (which should be shamed).

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