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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sessions Out — and CNN’s Acosta Locked Out A nation’s tumultuous day. Matthew Vadum

By on November 8th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271890/sessions-out-and-cnns-acosta-locked-out-matthew-vadum

The day after the midterm elections, President Trump forced Jeff Sessions out as attorney general, revoked the White House media credentials of CNN’s most obnoxious correspondent, Jim Acosta, after a spirited presser, and offered his reflections on his party retaining control of the Senate but losing control of the House to Democrats.

In the new Congress that will be meet in the new year, Republicans will control at least 54 of the Senate’s 100 seats, a net gain of three. Democrats were poised to have around a 12-member majority in the House of Representatives though that figure could change.

But Sessions, who was Trump’s first endorser in the Senate in early 2016 and who gave up his safe Senate seat in Alabama to become his attorney general, won’t be around to run the Department of Justice and deal with the flood of subpoenas congressional committees controlled by House Democrats are expected to issue in a variety of new, vexatious congressional probes of the president.

One of those investigations will come out of the House Judiciary Committee that deranged leftist Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) is expected to take over. Nadler vows to launch, among other things, impeachment proceedings against the newly-installed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. When they take control of the House of Representatives Jan. 3, Democrats plan to investigate President Trump’s tax filings, financial dealings, and their bizarre electoral collusion conspiracy theory.

President Trump announced Sessions’ departure at 2:44 p.m. on Wednesday in two tweets after a White House press conference wrapped up.

“We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well….”

A few seconds later he tweeted:

….We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.

It is unclear if Sessions knew he was going to be ousted yesterday but President Trump hasn’t made a secret of his displeasure with the nation’s top law enforcement officer. The fact that Sessions has done a fine job on cracking down on illegal immigration, so-called sanctuary cities, and international crime organizations such as MS-13, didn’t save him.

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HISTORY Comments turned off

The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month—100 Years Ago By Victor Davis Hanson

By on November 8th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/08/the-11th-hour-of-

The First World War ended 100 years ago this month on November 11, 1918, at 11 a.m. Nearly 20 million people had perished since the war began on July 28, 1914.

In early 1918, it looked as if the Central Powers—Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire—would win.

Czarist Russia gave up in December 1917. Tens of thousands of German and Austrian soldiers were freed to redeploy to the Western Front and finish off the exhausted French and British armies.

The late-entering United States did not declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary until April 1917. Six months later, America had still not begun to deploy troops in any great number.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. By summer 1918, hordes of American soldiers began arriving in France in unimaginable numbers of up to 10,000 doughboys a day. Anglo-American convoys began devastating German submarines. The German high command’s tactical blunders stalled the German offensives of spring 1918—the last chance before growing Allied numbers overran German lines.

Nonetheless, World War I strangely ended with an armistice—with German troops still well inside France and Belgium. Revolution was brewing in German cities back home.

The three major Allied victors squabbled over peace terms. America’s idealist president, Woodrow Wilson, opposed an Allied invasion of German and Austria to occupy both countries and enforce their surrenders.

By the time the formal Versailles Peace Conference began in January 1919, millions of soldiers had gone home. German politicians and veterans were already blaming their capitulation on “stab-in-the-back” traitors and spreading the lie that their armies lost only because they ran out of supplies while on the verge of victory in enemy territory.

The Allied victors were in disarray. Wilson was idolized when he arrived in France for peace talks in December 1918—and was hated for being self-righteous when he left six months later.

The Treaty of Versailles proved a disaster, at once too harsh and too soft. Its terms were far less punitive than those the victorious Allies would later dictate to Germany after World War II. Earlier, Germany itself had demanded tougher concessions from a defeated France in 1871 and Russia in 1918.

In the end, the Allies proved unforgiving to a defeated Germany in the abstract but not tough enough in the concrete.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Revenge of the Nerds By Michael Walsh

By on November 8th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/07/the-revenge-

It was not the best of times, nor was it the worst of times. Tuesday’s epic nothingburger of an off-year election was like Game Three of any given World Series, worth spilling oceans of ink over by paid-shill sportswriters eager to exhibit their chicken-entrail-reading skills, only to have their prognosticative prose instantly rendered fishwrap and birdcage lining by events the next day. So let’s all take a deep breath and, with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, reflect upon the epochal results of Midterm 2018.

Jeff Sessions was fired. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the play was a snooze.

Our collective obsession with transient election results—and our cocksure belief in the their predictive value—is akin to the novice Rotisserie Baseball player’s classic error in thinking that what happens in April is likely to obtain through September and right into the Fall Classic: the Hall of Fame is littered with the corpses of flash-in-the-pan flameouts. For statistics, and election results, can only be evaluated over time; it doesn’t matter when they happen as long as they do happen, and can be put into the proper statistical context at the end of a finite period. In baseball, that’s a season. In politics, it’s a lifetime, and even beyond.

Which means that Tuesday either was the Most Important Election of Our Lifetime, or just another day when Ted Williams went 0-for-3 on his way to hitting .406 in 1941. Right now, in the middle of the season, we don’t know. We can’t know. Over time, you can see the 0-fers as part of the overall record, and understand that failure is part of winning. Only a churl can argue the counter-factual alternative—that Williams might have hit .410 or higher with a few lucky dinks, dunks, and drops. As the old Yiddish proverb has it: Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde. And as Casey Stengel said, you can look it up.

But are the media sportswriters or umpires? Fox News’ egregious error in calling the House for the Democrats before California poured itself its first glass of Chardonnay was reminiscent of the bad old days of the Carter-Reagan election, but for today’s media it’s more important to affect the course of an election than it is simply to report on it. Best to treat CNN and the rest as the shamans they are, and move on.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Can Sanctions Bring Regime Change in Iran? Why the Mullahs should be worried. Ari Lieberman

By on November 8th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271879/can-sanctions-bring-regime-change-iran-ari-lieberman

On November 5, the United States imposed a comprehensive set of sanctions on Iran, which were characterized by United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the “toughest sanctions ever put in place on the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Some 700 Iranian entities and individuals were targeted. Particularly hard hit were the Islamic Republic’s energy, banking, shipping and air transport sectors. The action follows a preliminary set of sanctions imposed on entities affiliated with the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its rogue ballistic missile program. Citing Iranian violations, the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May.

In response to the U.S. action, Iran tried to put on a brave face. In a letter to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Iran’s UN ambassador, Gholamali Khoshroo, termed the measure “illegal.” Iran’s foreign minister and master dissembler, Mohammad Javad Zarif, stated the sanctions “will have no impact on determination of the great Iranian nation and the Americans will be obliged to change their policy.” Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, viewed by some in the West to be a “moderate,” vowed that his nation will continue to sell oil despite the sanctions.

In Iran, real power rests with “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while the president is a mere figurehead who requires the Supreme Leader’s imprimatur before he can even run for the office of the president. Khamenei is a radical Shia Islamist who controls the IRGC as well as its auxiliary Basij militia. Nothing of major import in Iran occurs without the Supreme Leader’s approval

The U.S. has stated that its goal is to modify Iran’s behavior and not to institute regime change. The Trump administration is seeking to thwart Iran’s ballistic missile program and its overseas mischief making. The administration is also seeking to modify certain clauses within the JCPOA, particularly the JCPOA’s sunset clauses which will enable the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium beyond current limitations.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Infiltrates American Campuses by Gordon G. Chang

By on November 8th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13261/china-american-campuses

The main points of contact for Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) chapters in the U.S. are often intelligence officers in the embassy and consulates. China’s Ministry of State Security uses CSSA students to inform on other Chinese on campus.

Let us get the FBI to round up Ministry of State Security agents who, up to now, have been given free rein to operate in America. Putting these agents behind bars or even just revoking their visas will end many of the activities that endanger American campuses. The Chinese kill CIA agents in China. The least Washington can do is declare China’s agents personae non gratae.

The Chinese feel emboldened to violate American sovereignty and break laws because American administrations have let them do these things — sometimes openly — since at least the early 1990s. This is as much a Washington problem as a Beijing one.

Congress can also change laws to make life inhospitable for Confucius Institutes. Legislation should bar an educational institution from receiving any federal funds if it hosts a CI.

Beijing, in seeking influence on American college and university campuses, has been infringing on academic freedoms, violating American sovereignty, and breaking U.S. law. U.S. officials, neglecting their responsibilities to the American people, have allowed this injurious behavior to continue, in some instances for decades.

As an initial matter, some of this impermissible Chinese conduct is harmless, even amusing. As detailed by Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic in a landmark study for the Wilson Center, Chinese officials in 2004 and 2007 threatened then Columbia University professor Robert Barnett, the prominent Tibet expert, that if he did not adopt a more favorable view of China’s policies they would — heavens! — stop speaking to him.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How Extremist Scholars Promote Terrorism, Violence by A. Z. Mohamed

By on November 8th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13073/scholars-terrorism-extremism

“I would like to pay tribute to the sincere scholars of Al-Azhar and the Ministry of Awqaf [Endowments] who are working to correct the misconceptions about the tolerant Islamic religion and its moderate middle approach, to address and counter extremism and deviant ideology and to uphold the human, moral and love values among all human kind.” — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, June 11, 2018.

The Grand Imam conspicuously chose to ignore the fact that many Muslims hate and despise non-Muslims. These Muslims are acting in accordance with what the Quran and the Hadith tell them about the disbelievers.

Prominent Muslim scholars continue to argue that the Quran and Prophet Mohammed do not incite intolerance or killing Christians and Jews. Many scholars, however, seem prepared to do their utmost to hide this “inconvenient truth.”

Take, for example, Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Egypt’s preeminent Sunni university, who recently claimed that “there is no single verse in the Quran that calls for killing Jews or Christians.”

While it is true that the Quran does not specifically call for killing Christians and Jews, the Hadith — a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of Prophet Mohammed — does refer to killing all Jews.

The Quran, however does refer to Christians and Jews as disbelievers, and calls on Muslims to fight and kill disbelievers.

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar made his claim in a speech delivered in Cairo, Egypt, in the presence of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, senior government officials and Al-Azhar clerics on June 11 during the annual celebration of Laylat al-Qadr (“Night of Decree”).

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POLITICS Comments turned off

At State Level, Democrats Are Still Lagging By Rick Moran

By on November 8th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/at-state-level-democrats-are-still-lagging/
“Despite their House takeover, Democrats only picked up a paltry 6 state legislative chambers, leaving Republicans in control of 21 states. ”

Democrats may have taken over the House, but the party didn’t progress much in reversing the decade-long trend of Republican dominance at the state level.

Democrats gained complete control of only four state legislatures, while flipping six chambers. That leaves 61 chambers in Republican control while Democrats are in charge in only 37. (Note: Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is non-partisan.)

National Conference of State Legislatures:

In terms of overall legislative control (both House and Senate), Dems gained control of four on Tuesday. Republicans will control 30 versus the Democrats’ 18 when sessions convene in January. Minnesota is now the only state where legislative control is divided. It’s the lowest number of divided legislatures in more than 100 years, matching 1914 when Montana was the only state with a split legislature.

As for state control, which includes the governor along with the legislature, Democrats went from controlling eight to 14.

The GOP still completely controls 21 state governments with 13 now having divided government and Georgia still undecided.

More facts from NCSL:

No surprise. The party of the president lost seats (and chambers) in this midterm as usual. That’s par for the course—in 28 of the midterm elections held since 1900, that’s been true.
More than 330 seats nationwide shifted from Republican to Democrat. That is short of the typical losses suffered by the party in the White House. The average loss to the president’s party in midterms since 1902 is 424 legislative seats.
Among the six chambers won by Ds were the New Hampshire House, the Maine Senate and the Minnesota House. Those three chambers have been very volatile in recent years. They have all switched party control in four of the last five elections.
The Connecticut Senate went from tied to Democratic control. Since 1900, the Connecticut Senate has changed hands 23 times—more than any other state legislative body in the United States.
No chambers will be tied going into next year’s sessions. At least one legislative chamber was tied from 1966 until 2011, and then Connecticut wound up tied in 2016.
Two top legislative leaders lost their elections, North Dakota House Majority Leader Al Carlson and New Hampshire House Speaker Gene Chandler.
The Republican caucus in the Hawaii Senate took a huge leap forward, from zero members to one.
It is very likely that more women will serve in state legislatures come January than at any point in American history. The numbers are still being crunched.
In the Nevada Assembly, women will hold a majority of all seats—22 out of 42.
As occasionally happens, a legislative candidate passed away shortly before Election Day, but the name remained on the ballot. Nevada brothel owner Dennis Hof, who died Oct. 15, won his race on Tuesday, getting more than 17,000 votes. CONTINUE AT SITE

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Exit Polls Show Suburbs as Likely 2020 Battlefield By Adele Malpass

By on November 8th, 2018

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/11/07/exit_polls_show_suburbs_as_likely_2020_battlefield_138582.html

The battleground for the 2020 presidential election may have been mapped out by Tuesday’s midterms and exit polling shows it lies smack dab in the middle of America’s suburbs.

Nearly 50 percent of the electorate is suburban, which this year was evenly split between Republicans and Democrats — at 49 percent each — according to the National Election Poll, the exit poll of almost 19,000 respondents often cited by the national media. For the last two decades, suburban voters have leaned slightly Republican, as was the case in 2016 when Donald Trump outpolled Hillary Clinton by four percentage points. In contrast, urban voters supported Democrats by a 33-point margin in this year’s midterms, while Republicans carried rural areas by 14 points.

“There’s an old adage in demographics that density equals Democrats, but the Democrats are starting to show significant strength in the less dense suburbs,” said Karlyn Bowman, a demographics expert at the American Enterprise Institute. She predicted that “the suburbs will continue to be a competitive area of focus” in 2020.

Sarah Chamberlain, president of Main Street Republican Partnership, noted that “Republicans won or lost by a little bit — it wasn’t a blow-out in the suburbs.”

One of the biggest shifts in suburban voting patterns involves married women. In 2016, for the first time since exit polling began in 1980, married women slightly supported the Democratic presidential candidate, 49 to 47 percent. That shift became more pronounced this year with married women supporting Democrats by 54 percent to 44 percent. “Trump’s temperament and demeanor has exacerbated the movement of married women towards the Democrats,” said Bowman.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Brazil: We won’t yield to Arab pressure, embassy will move to Jerusalem Ariel Kahana

By on November 7th, 2018

http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/11/07/brazil-we-wont-yield-to-arab-pressure-embassy-will-move-to-jerusalem/

After Egypt reportedly rescinds invitation of Brazilian foreign minister in protest of Brazil’s plan to relocate its embassy, President-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, insists embassy will move • Jewish leader: Israel suffered but held its head high.

The new administration in Brazil has reiterated its position that despite mounting pressure from the Arab world, it will remain true to its word and relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“We’re going to move the Brazilian Embassy to Jerusalem,” Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro, wrote on Tuesday to Jane Silva, president of a leading pro-Israel organization in Brazil.

Silva had approached Eduardo Bolsonaro in the wake of reports in the Brazilian press indicating that Egypt had called off the Brazilian foreign minister’s upcoming visit to Cairo in protest of the planned embassy transfer.

In her letter to Bolsonaro, Silva wrote: “Jerusalem was always the capital of Israel. … There was a partition plan; the Arabs rejected it and launched wars against Israel and persecuted Israel. Israel has suffered, but it held its head high. Israel has seized every opportunity and established a nice home for the sole and legitimate owners of the land of Israel – the Jewish people.”

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MEDIA, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Virtue Broadcasting Julie Bindel

By on November 7th, 2018

http://standpointmag.co.uk/counterpoints-november-2018-julie-bindel-virtue-broadcasting

The BBC’s new policy on “equality and diversity”, reading as though it is straight out of the W1A comedy series, aims to combat “heteronormative culture”. According to their chief radio and education honcho, the former Labour cabinet minister James Purnell, just over half (51 per cent) of 18- to 21-year-olds identify as heterosexual. There is no doubt that the BBC needs to engage younger viewers, and prise them away from their iPhones and laptops, but is the problem it seeks to address really about more “heteronormativity”, bearing in mind most of us don’t know what that even means?

In order to encourage more “woke” viewers, the Beeb commissioned an internal survey of 300 LGBT staff, which found that there are areas “requiring improvement, including a heteronormative culture, a need for inclusive non-binary language, insufficient support for trans staff, and a need to adopt LGBTQ or LGBTQ+.”

I wonder how many lesbians, as opposed to gay men or transgender individuals, took part in the survey. As is fashionable these days, the focus seems to be disproportionately on men and the transgender community. The identity list keeps on growing: it currently stands at LGBTQQIPA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Polyamorous, and Asexual).

However, much of this new wave of identity politics obsessing the Beeb and others appears to be largely about members of the “snowflake generation” wanting to be seen as that little bit special. Indeed, the few people who are not included in the ever-growing list, and who cannot even claim to have once worn an adult nappy at a fancy-dress party, can wear badges identifying as “straight allies”. Aside from the fact that some people do not wish to display their sexual preferences on a lapel, as an out and proud lesbian, I am dead against this idea, not least because it takes far more than a declaration of support to identify someone who will stand up for a gay colleague in the face of bigotry and abuse.

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