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Ruth King

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Sad and pathetic: Delusional Bill Kristol prepares ‘war machine’ to challenge Trump for 2020 GOP nomination By Thomas Lifson

By on September 15th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/sad_and_pathetic_delusional_bill_kristol_prepares_war_machine_to_challenge_trump_for_2020_gop_nomination.html

Swamp fever has taken a toll on a number of DC-dwelling conservative pundits and driven them mad. They seem to be competing with each other to see who can bark at the moon loudest. There’s Jennifer Rubin, who has excoriated Trump for taking positions that she previously advocated. There’s George Will, who wished for a 50 state sweep for corrupt Hillary Clinton. But making a strong move to capture leadership of this cohort is Bill Kristol, who still fancies himself a kingmaker, despite the ignominious defeat of his second-choice Trump challenger Evan McMullin after first choice David French bowed out.

Paging Dr. Freud: Kristol’s chosen picture for his Twitter account looks like someone shooting himself in the head with his finger-gun

Recall that Kristol’s deep-think strategy was to have McMullin win the votes of (presumably straight-laced) Utah voters who shared McMullin’s Mormon faith, and thereby deny the “short-fingered vulgarian” Trump the electoral votes of the Beehive State, which Kristol theorized might swing the election to Hillary.

Undeterred by playing the fool in 2016, Kristol is, in the memorable words of Lieutenant General Honore, “stuck on stupid” and looking for a new patsy candidate to mobilize the inevitable defeat of Trump in the GOP nomination contest. Like cargo cultists building a model of a runway in New Guinea for the airplanes air dropping supplies, Kristol thinks he can create a ‘war machine’ that will prevail over a sitting president with 90% approval from Republicans.

Joe Concha of The Hill manages to report this announced effort without even using the expressing ”LOL.”

Conservative commentator and outspoken “Never Trump” critic Bill Kristol says he is building a “war machine” within the Republican party to challenge President Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, according to CNBC.

Kristol told the network that he’s preparing “for a primary run against Trump,” adding that Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is on his shortlist of possible candidates.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

California Climate Policies Facing Revolt from Civil-Rights Groups By Robert Bryce

By on September 15th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/california-climate-change-policy-hits-poor-residents-hardest/Hugely expensive green mandates will hit poor Californians the hardest.

In April, civil-rights groups sued to stop some of California’s policies designed to address climate change. Then on Monday, California governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 100, which requires the state’s utilities to obtain all their electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. Before signing the bill, Brown said the legislation was “sending a message to California and to the world that we’re going to meet the Paris agreement.” In fact, it will only increase the hardships that California’s climate policy imposes on the poor, as detailed in the lawsuit.

High electricity prices should be a concern for California policymakers, since electric rates in the state are already 60 percent higher than those in the rest of the country. According to a recent study by the Berkeley-based think tank Environmental Progress, between 2011 and 2017 California’s electricity rates rose more than five times as fast as those in the rest of the U.S. SB 100 will mean even higher electricity prices for Californians.

In addition to cost, the all-renewable push set forth in SB 100 faces huge challenges with regard to energy storage. Relying solely on renewables will require a battery system large enough to handle massive seasonal fluctuations in wind and solar output. (Wind-energy and solar-energy production in California is roughly three times as great during the summer months as it is in the winter.) According to the Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based energy-policy think tank, for California to get 80 percent of its electricity from renewables would require about 9.6 terawatt-hours of storage. This would require about 500 million Tesla Powerwalls, or roughly 15 Powerwalls for every resident. A full 100 percent–renewable electricity mandate would require some 36.3 terawatt-hours of storage, or about 60 Powerwalls for every resident of California.

Increasing reliance on renewable energy also means increasing land-use conflicts. Since 2015, more than 200 government entities from Maine to California have voted to reject or restrict the encroachment of wind-energy projects. In 2015 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance banning large wind turbines in the county’s unincorporated areas. Three other California counties — San Diego, Solano, and Inyo — have also passed restrictions on Big Wind. Last year, the head of the California Wind Energy Association lamented that “we’re facing restrictions like that all around the state,” adding that “it’s pretty bleak in terms of the potential for new development.” The result of the anti-wind restrictions can be seen in the numbers. Last year, California had about 5,600 megawatts of installed wind capacity. That’s roughly 150 megawatts less than what the state had back in 2013.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

In the Russia Probe, It’s ‘Qui S’excuse S’accuse’ By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on September 15th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/trump-russia-probe-fbi-fisa-application/Unseal the FISA redactions? We should be alarmed by what’s already disclosed

Will this be the week? With bated breath, we wait to find out whether we’ve reached the moment, after the Labor Day end of summer, just as the critical midterm races heat up, when President Trump will follow through on his threat to declassify and publicize key FISA-gate documents — in particular, the redacted portions of the Carter Page surveillance-warrant applications.

I hope the president follows through, at least to the extent he can do so without putting intelligence methods and sources at risk. Accountability is essential here.

The FBI and the Obama Justice Department launched an investigation of the Democrats’ political adversaries, and they used Clinton-campaign-generated, foreign-provided innuendo to do it. They strained to make a case on Donald Trump even as they were burying a daunting criminal case on Mrs. Clinton. As I have previously explained, moreover, the president was misled about his status: not only was he a suspect in the investigation, he was the main suspect.

The main suspect in an investigation with no crime.

Before we unwind that, let’s dispense with the tired claim that the Obama administration did not really spy on Trump and his campaign. Every one of the four FISA warrant applications, after describing Russia’s cyberespionage attack on the 2016 election, makes the following assertion (after two redacted lines):

the FBI believes that the Russian Government’s efforts to influence the 2016 election were being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with Candidate #1’s campaign.

“Candidate #1” is Trump. See, the upper hierarchies of the FBI and the Justice Department believed the Steele dossier — or at least they said they did. The operating assumption of the Obama administration in the months before the 2016 election was that the Trump campaign was complicit in the Kremlin’s hacking conspiracy. Otherwise, the FBI would not have made this representation to the FISA court four times, including twice after President Trump was already in office.

Did they say this because they believed it was true? Because they wanted to believe it was true? Because they had misplaced confidence in Christopher Steele, the former British spy who shared their anti-Trump contempt? Probably a bit of all those things. But the point is: You must always bear in mind that the incumbent leadership of the intelligence community had convinced itself that the Trump campaign was in cahoots with the Kremlin. Based on that belief, the FBI and Obama’s DOJ took bold risks because they’d further convinced themselves that there was no risk at all: Everything was in the black box of classified intelligence and, besides, Hillary was a shoo-in to win. No one would ever be any the wiser.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Greece: “Humanitarian Aid” Organization’s People-Smuggling by Maria Polizoidou

By on September 15th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12960/greece-people-smuggling

Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI) describes itself as a “Greek nonprofit organization that provides emergency response and humanitarian aid in times of crisis….” It has reportedly abetted the illegal entry into Greece of 70,000 immigrants since 2015, providing the “nonprofit” with half a billion euros per year.
ECRI evidently received 2,000 euros from each illegal immigrant it helped to enter Greece. In addition, its members created a business for “integrating refugees” into Greek society, granting it 5,000 euros per immigrant per year from various government programs (in education, housing and nutrition).
With the government of Greece seemingly at a loss as to how to handle its refugee crisis and safeguard the security of its citizens, it is particularly dismaying to discover that the major NGO whose mandate is to provide humanitarian aid to immigrants is instead profiting from smuggling them.

On August 28, thirty members of the Greek NGO Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI) were arrested for their involvement in a people-smuggling network that has been operating on the island of Lesbos since 2015. According to a statement released by Greek police, as a result of the investigation that led to the arrests, “The activities of an organised criminal network that systematically facilitated the illegal entry of foreigners were fully exposed.”

Among the activities uncovered were forgery, espionage and the illegal monitoring of both the Greek coastguard and the EU border agency, Frontex, for the purpose of gleaning confidential information about Turkish refugee flows. The investigation also led to the discovery of an additional six Greeks and 24 foreign nationals implicated in the case.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Dirt and Delay Playbook Democrats want to push a Kavanaugh vote past Election Day.

By on September 15th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dirt-and-delay-playbook-1536966589

A reliable rule of modern politics, especially Supreme Court politics, is to think lower. Really low. That’s our advice as we learn more about the last-minute accusation that Democrats are floating against Brett Kavanaugh. The timeline of this ugly disclosure suggests it’s part of a calculated if desperate strategy to delay a confirmation vote past the November election.

The New Yorker on Friday offered more details on the accusation from a woman who claims Mr. Kavanaugh had “attempted to force himself on her” at a party when the two were in high school in the early 1980s. Yes, high school. The story was published a day after Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, announced that she had “information” about Mr. Kavanaugh that she had shared with the FBI.

Ms. Feinstein purported to take the high road of offering no details and protecting the woman’s privacy. But someone took the low road of providing the New Yorker details of the accusation contained in a letter from the woman to Ms. Feinstein. The unidentified woman alleges that Mr. Kavanaugh “held her down,” covered her mouth with his hand, and with a male classmate turned up the music so she couldn’t be heard. “She was able to free herself,” the New Yorker reported.

The magazine was given these details with enough time to contact someone close to the woman. The reporters also had time to contact the male classmate who said he had “no recollection” of the incident. For the record, Mr. Kavanaugh “categorically and unequivocally” denies the allegation.

The timeline here is damning about Democratic motivations. The New Yorker says the woman first approached Democrats in July. Yet Ms. Feinstein didn’t ask about the accusation in her meeting with Judge Kavanaugh, didn’t ask about it at the hearing, and no Democrats asked about it in their 1,278 written follow-up questions after the hearing.

So why now? As we wrote Friday, the charitable explanation is that Ms. Feinstein didn’t think it worthy enough of investigation but finally bowed under pressure from her colleagues. She’s running for re-election against a left-wing Democrat who is pounding her for not stopping Mr. Kavanaugh and on Friday hit her for a “failure of leadership” for waiting to disclose the allegations.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

STUDY: Diversity Officers ‘Contribute Nothing Positive to a University’ By Toni Airaksinen

By on September 15th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/study-diversity-officers-contribute-nothing-positive-to-a-university/

A new Baylor University study has discovered that Chief Diversity Officers — who are typically paid upwards of $180,000 — are ineffective at one of their major job responsibilities: increasing diversity among faculty and administrators.

The study, “The Impact of Chief Diversity Officers on Diverse Faculty Hiring” was published in September by four Baylor University professors, including Steven Bradley, a professor of entrepreneurship at the school.

“Three years ago, there was a campus-wide discussion of whether to hire a CDO,” Bradley told PJ Media on Thursday. Supporters of the CDO position claimed it would help increase faculty diversity, in turn helping minority students feel safe on campus.

The summary of a 2016 campus survey put it more bluntly.

“The lack of [minority] representation among faculty sends a message for women and minorities to not bother applying to Baylor, [and that] the work environment is not safe or welcoming,” the report said.

Since then, Baylor officials appear to have punted. The prospect of hiring a diversity officer was too concerning for some school officials, who feared it would detract from the school’s Christian identity, according to the Waco-Tribune Herald.

(At Baylor, the possibility of hiring a CDO was so contentious — and ultimately abandoned — that it led to at least one resignation.)

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

David Singer: Trump Squeezes UNRWA, Checkmates PLO and Incentivises Jordan

By on September 14th, 2018

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2018/09/david-singer-trump-squeezes-unrwa.html
President Trump has created a veritable diplomatic tsunami affecting the political fortunes of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Hamas and Jordan – with his decision to cease all future donations to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – currently US$360million per annum and comprising about 30 percent of UNRWA’s budget.

The numbers of UNRWA-registered Palestinian Arab refugees in Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza have been increasing in leaps and bounds annually because they include all the descendants of those Palestinian Arabs caught up in the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israel wars.

Currently:

2,175,000 live in Jordan – 370,000 of whom reside in 10 camps
810,000 live in the West Bank – 200,000 of whom reside in 19 camps
1,300,000 live in Gaza – 580,000 of whom reside in 8 camps

UNRWA only provides services to the camps. UNRWA does not administer or police the camps, as this is the responsibility of the host authorities.

Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza comprise 83 per cent of the territory of former Palestine.

For UNRWA to count as “refugees” people who are now living in Arab-controlled parts of the same country where their forebears once resided – is really an insult to one’s intelligence.

For UNRWA to tolerate a system of apartheid and segregation that allows those “refugees” to be divided into camp dwellers and non-camp dwellers makes a mockery of the humanitarian principles espoused by the United Nations and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Struggling under an accumulated deficit of US$271 million before Trump’s hammer blow – UNRWA had already shut down or slated for closure many programs and laid off large numbers of employees – mainly Palestinian Arabs.

The further cuts UNRWA will now be forced to make following America’s defunding will be critical to the PLO, Hamas and Jordan – as “refugees” coming under their respective jurisdictions affected by substantial cuts to their well-established entitlements see others not similarly subjected.

UNRWA funding decisions cannot possibly please all these “refugees” – and those receiving UNRWA aid in Lebanon and Syria.

The PLO, Hamas and Jordan will be lobbying furiously for UNRWA funding cuts to not be made to “refugees” living under their governance. Serious political consequences could ensue if they fail.
Jordan – enjoying a long-standing peace treaty with Israel – currently houses 50 percent of the total of UNRWA registered Palestinian Arab “refugees” in the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Satirist Who Mocked the Kremlin—and Russian Character Vladimir Voinovich was exiled by the Soviets and later hailed as his nation’s greatest living writer. By David Satter

By on September 14th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-satirist-who-mocked-the-kremlinand-russian-character-1536962945

‘I have been instructed to inform you,” an official told Vladimir Voinovich in 1980, “that the patience of the Soviet authorities and the people has come to an end.” The official, a district boss, loomed over Voinovich, who wrote that he imagined the next step would be execution on the spot. Instead he was stripped of citizenship and forced into exile near Munich for “defaming the motherland.”

Voinovich, who died July 27 at 85, returned to the Soviet Union in 1990. Eventually he was hailed as Russia’s greatest living writer. But he never lost the qualities that wore out the Soviet regime’s patience. His singular gift was to see things as they are. In his most famous work, “The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, ” he depicted the Soviet people, personified by a bumbling Red Army private, not as heroic builders of communism, but as innocents buffeted by forces they didn’t understand.

At an army lecture, the first question is: “Why is our army called a ‘people’s army’?” The answer: “Because it serves the people.” Next question: “Who do the armies of the capitalist countries serve?” “A clique of capitalists.”

Chonkin raises his hand and asks if it is true that Stalin had two wives. He is immediately assigned to guard a plane that has crashed near a collective farm where, disillusioned with politics, he spends his time talking to a horse. “If you say the wrong thing to a person you can get yourself in hot water,” he observes, “but no matter what you say to a horse, he’ll accept it.”

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P.C.-CULTURE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Paul Collits: Sanity Banished, Standards Cast Down

By on September 14th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/09/sanity-banished-standards-cast/

Western societies no longer exhibit true virtue, having traded the genuine article for the posturing which draws applause on Twitter. They no longer yearn for excellence. They do not seek truth. What we have witnessed is a wholesale collapse in the decency of our institutions.

That great culture warrior and conservative, Douglas Murray, recently observed, following a visit to Australia:

I cannot think of a time when more people have lost their minds — opponents and erstwhile allies alike. I am a minimalist in my expectations for this era. I think our main job is not to be driven mad. Or at least not to behave in ways that will make us feel shame in the future.

Well might we feel broad and deep shame for our era. Conservatives, many of us, have all but given up on the party of Menzies, as it lurches from crisis to crisis, unseats elected leaders at will, sidelines just about everybody to the right of Clive Hamilton, and engages in systemic fixing, branch-stacking, the career-destruction of enemies and lining the pockets of mates.

The once great Labor Party, the party of Curtin and Chifley, has upended its old, honest, defensible, socially conservative policies and embraced holus-bolus the core ideas of the post-1968 generation of post-modernist ratbaggery.

Those once trusted organisations, the banks, have their criminal acts and corporate idiocies paraded before us on a daily basis.

Sporting codes embrace cloying political correctness, especially as it relates to race and sex, and enforce it with sanctions.

Corporations bully employees who dare to challenge the party line of big (social liberal) brother.

Fake news abounds. The very term, newly coined to describe old, old practices, is itself used as a weapon. The media, once able to differentiate news from opinion, no longer does or can. The ABC is no longer the network of James Dibble, having adopted activism and partisan advocacy as its virtuous mission.

Institutions of higher learning stop (certain) people from speaking on their campuses, lest someone be offended. The universities accept money from all comers — save those who simply wish to teach literature, philosophy and history as they have been taught for a millennium. Police forces now charge (monetarily) the innocent while failing to charge (legally) the patently guilty.

Scientists, those supposed exemplars of Enlightenment thinking, have in large measure opted for groupthink and venal grant-troughing even when this means the abandonment of scientific method.

That foundational institution, the source of all others, the family, now cannot even be defined without bastardising its core characteristics. The family is now, to borrow from Paul Keating, two gays and a cocker spaniel. Or whatever we want it to be.

Institutions across the whole of Western society no longer have standards. They no longer exhibit true virtue, having traded that for the posturing which draws applause on Twitter. They no longer yearn for excellence. They do not seek truth. What we have witnessed is, in effect, a wholesale collapse in the decency of our institutions.

Melanie Phillips, in one of her excellent books, describes a world “upside down”. Murray talks of the “shame” of our era. The traditionalist Catholic rag The Remnant – no fan of the current pope, of course – featured a recent, “Vatican going bonkers”.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Far left triumphant in New York primary By Rick Moran

By on September 14th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/far_left_triumphant_in_new_york_primary.html

The socialist insurgency against establishment Democrats in New York emerged triumphant as no fewer than six far-left candidates defeated establishment Democrats in races for the state Senate.

New York Times:

Years of anger at a group of Democratic state senators who had collaborated with Republicans boiled over on Thursday, as primary voters ousted nearly all of them in favor of challengers who had called them traitors and sham progressives.

The losses were not only a resounding upset for the members of the Independent Democratic Conference, who outspent their challengers several times over, but also a sign that the progressive fervor sweeping national politics had hobbled New York’s once-mighty Democratic machine, at least on a local level.

The most high-profile casualty was Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx, the former head of the I.D.C. In that role, he was for years one of Albany’s most powerful players, sharing leadership of the chamber with his counterparts in the Republican conference and participating in the state’s secretive budget negotiations.

But on Thursday, he was defeated by Alessandra Biaggi, a lawyer and former aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, after a campaign in which Ms. Biaggi cornered Mr. Klein into spending more than $2 million, an astonishing sum for a state legislative race. (Cynthia Nixon, in her unsuccessful bid against Mr. Cuomo, spent less.)

Two things: First, the victories of socialists rid the Democrats of the last vestige of bipartisanship in the state Senate. This will make Albany an even more unruly place than it already is. Secondly, and most important, the march of socialism in the Democratic Party appears to be unstoppable and will make 2020 an Armageddon of sorts between right and left.

Which vision will the 50% of eligible voters who bother to go to the polls choose? The party of free stuff? Or the party of personal responsibility and the protection of liberty?

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