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Ruth King

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Ladies, We Don’t Need To Be Part of Your Group Therapy By Julie Kelly

By on September 20th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/20/ladies-we-dont-

Do we really have to be here for this?

By “we,” I mean America. And by “this,” I mean some form of forced group therapy session for adult women who cannot move past an ugly event from their teen years and feel the need to relitigate it in public nearly four decades later. A serious vetting process for a Supreme Court nominee has suddenly devolved into the GenX version of “The Big Chill.”

Here’s the deal: Christine Blasey Ford is one year older than I am. We came of age in the hard-partying 1980s when binge drinking among Americans teens was at an all-time high. A huge cultural shift was happening: Moms were entering the workforce and divorce rates were surging. Teenagers had extra latitude to do naughty things while our parents were busy working or finding new relationships post-divorce.

Plenty of GenX women have at least one story somewhat similar to the one Ford now says happened to her in the early 1980s: Attending a “house party” with a small group of drunk teens at a home where no parent was present; getting so blitzed you can’t later recall important details—like the exact date it happened or how you got home. Having inebriated boys take advantage of the situation—getting sloppy and aggressive, maybe even trying to force themselves on you. While the behavior was not excusable or acceptable, nor was it criminal. Especially if it ended after a firm “no.” (And, before any of you morons say it, NO I AM NOT DEFENDING RAPE.)

Human Nature Doesn’t Change
Moreover, these kinds of situations are not unique to the 1980s because they still happen every weekend in towns and on campuses across the country. Something that is definitely different today than it was in the 1980s is that responsible parents of boys now caution their sons about the dangers of even the perception of mistreating a girl. Parents now are keenly aware of the legal and long term consequences of alleged abusive behavior. And girls are more informed about how to defend themselves, whether its moving in groups, watching your drinks, or having each other’s backs to mitigate situations that may get out of control.

My generation, as parents, do not pretend that the impulses of teenagers and young adults do not exist, or that these impulses are not fueled by drugs and alcohol. Human nature does not adapt to conform to any particular cultural moment.

Which brings me back to Ford. I don’t doubt that some version of the incident she described did happen to her—or to someone she knew—at some point during her teen years. It appears to be traumatizing enough that it was brought up during her marriage counseling.

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Trump says exposing ‘corrupt’ FBI probe could be ‘crowning achievement’ of presidencyBy John Solomon and Buck Sexton

By on September 20th, 2018

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/407335-exclusive-trump-says-exposing-corrupt-fbi-probe-could-be-crowning-achievement

President Trump in an exclusive interview with Hill.TV said Tuesday he ordered the release of classified documents in the Russia collusion case to show the public the FBI probe started as a “hoax” and that exposing it could become one of the “crowning achievements” of his presidency.

“What we’ve done is a great service to the country, really,” Trump said in a 45-minute, wide-ranging interview in the Oval Office.

“I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done … in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he said.

Trump also said he regretted not firing former FBI Director James Comey immediately instead of waiting until May 2017, confirming an account his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, gave Hill.TV earlier in the day that Trump was dismayed in 2016 by the way Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email case and began discussing firing him well before he became president.

“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don’t want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day on the job. … I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don’t want him there when I get there.”

Trump has offered different reasons in the past for his firing of the FBI chief, blaming Comey’s handling of the Clinton case but also linking it to Comey’s actions in the Russia investigation.

The president also called into question the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation, again criticizing it for surveilling his campaign.

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Funding UNRWA: Are European Taxpayers Being Taken for a Ride? by Bassam Tawil

By on September 20th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12996/unrwa-funding

Iran’s average annual contribution to UNRWA in recent years has been $2,000.
Iran does spend billions of dollars a year outside its borders in the Middle East. Iran provides weapons and cash to terrorist groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Iran helps these groups because they want to destroy the “Zionist entity.” Iran is now devoting huge resources in Syria to help dictator Bashar Assad in his fight against the rebels, as well as substantial sums of money helping Houthi militias in Yemen.
Lebanon’s laws treat Palestinians as a special group of foreigners, even denying them the same rights granted to other foreigners. Palestinians in Lebanon are not only denied basic rights enjoyed by Lebanese citizens and other foreigners, but also denied rights as refugees under international conventions.
Arab and Muslim states could start to think of ways to help Palestinians achieve a better life and improve their children’s future instead of sitting in refugee camps and waiting for handouts from the UN and other Western countries. Or is continuing to beg non-Arabs and non-Muslims for money the better deal?

At a meeting in Cairo this month, Arab and Muslim foreign ministers expressed concern about the fate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) after the US administration decided to cut all US aid to the agency. The ministers “underscored the importance of allowing UNRWA to continue playing a pivotal role in providing humanitarian aid” to Palestinian “refugees.” They also warned that “harming” UNRWA will aggravate the crisis in the Middle East.

If these Arab and Muslim countries are so worried about UNRWA and the Palestinian refugees, why don’t they step in to fill the vacuum and pay for the loss of the US funds? What is keeping them from pulling out their checkbooks and solving this “refugee crisis”?

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The International Criminal Court: A Failed Experiment by Ahmed Charai

By on September 20th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13008/international-criminal-court

Ambassador John Bolton was prescient in his 1998 warning, when the formation of body was first being debated in Rome, that it would be ineffective, unaccountable and overly political.

The reconciliation commissions of South Africa and Morocco aimed to rehabilitate victims, and pay compensation for state outrages against them. That method would be a better model for Africa than a court funded and run from Europe.

The International Criminal Court is a noble ideal but a flawed institution. Far better to encourage nations to develop courts that are accountable to the victims and free from charges of selective enforcement or foreign intervention.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is “already dead to us” National Security Adviser John Bolton told the Federalist Society recently. The U.S. will, he said, resist the court “by any means necessary.”

Why would the Trump Administration take such a hard line against “the world’s court of last resort”? Founded in 2002, in the wake of the Rwandan and Yugoslavian genocides and mass rapes, the international body was supposed to try evildoers who would otherwise escape justice due to broken legal systems in failed states.

Opposing the court is not a new position for the U.S. or Ambassador Bolton. The Bush Administration refused to sign the court’s implementing treaty in 2003, contending that it would lead to trials of U.S. soldiers and spies by a politically turbo-charged body located in Europe. At the time, many European leaders opposed President Bush’s war in Iraq and questioned its actions in the war on terror, including rendition and holding prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay. Ambassador Bolton was even more prescient. He warned, in 1998, when the formation of body was first being debated in Rome, that it would be ineffective, unaccountable and overly political.

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Kavanaugh and Doing the Right Thing Kavanaugh’s accuser wants an FBI investigation; here’s what Republicans need to do next.Lloyd Billingsley

By on September 20th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271376/kavanaugh-and-doing-right-thing-lloyd-billingsley

On Tuesday Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford made it known she would only testify if the FBI investigates first. Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and other Democrats echoed this demand, but former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova wasn’t going for it.

“This is utter nonsense,” diGenova told Tucker Carlson of Fox News. Blasey Ford “really doesn’t want to testify. Because when she does, she is going to look like the loon she is. She may very well believe everything she’s saying, and that is one of the signs of lunacy, believing something that isn’t real.” And her lawyer was “even loonier.”

As the former U.S. Attorney explained, the accusation is a nonfederal matter, an alleged assault unconfirmed even by the witness herself. She failed to report it to anyone and was not sure when it happened or where it happened, or who else was there. So the FBI could not investigate “because there is nothing to investigate.”

On Wednesday, Blasey Ford’s attorney Lisa Banks said there are “multiple witnesses” who should testify and Ford wants a “full non-partisan investigation.” But as law professor Jonathan Turley pointed out Wednesday, “conditioning testimony on a criminal investigation by a federal agency is well beyond the province of any witness.”

Kavanaugh has endured six FBI background checks and the Bureau was on record that it would do nothing with the 36-year-old accusation. So it was all, as diGenova said, “clearly a desire to delay proceedings.” Carlson wondered why any Republicans would go along with that and asked diGenova how he would advise them.

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Redaction Resistance: Alive and Well Swamp bureaucrats are already scheming to frustrate Trump’s declassification order. Matthew Vadum

By on September 20th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271379/redaction-resistance-alive-and-well-matthew-vadum

Washington bureaucrats are already reportedly resisting President Trump’s sweeping good-government transparency order this week directing intelligence agencies to declassify certain documents from the long-running investigation related to the Left’s unproven electoral collusion conspiracy theory involving Trump and Russia.

And they are doing so at the urging of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and other leftists and media figures who wish to precipitate a full-blown constitutional crisis by stripping the president of his unrestricted, constitutionally prescribed power to unliterally declassify government documents at will. These four Democratic lawmakers are alarmed at the prospect of being exposed as frauds and publicly humiliated, which is why they wrote Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday urging resistance to the presidential order.

These left-wingers still can’t accept that Trump trounced Democrat Hillary Clinton on Election Day in 2016 and they are doing everything they can to reverse the verdict the American people rendered that day. It is a continuation of the Obama-era plot to discredit Trump by falsely claiming he is a puppet of Russia.

It is nothing less than a coup attempt by sore losers.

Left-wingers are even claiming the president’s declassification effort is intended to distract from Trump’s various public relations problems such as the criminal conviction of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort for matters unrelated to the campaign.

It’s tedious stuff.

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Politicizing the FBI Democrats want to turn agents into judges of nominee character.

By on September 19th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/politicizing-the-fbi-1537399543

Democrats continue to demand an FBI investigation into Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, and on Wednesday we explained their political goal to delay a confirmation vote past Election Day. But it’s worth a moment to point out why this is also an inappropriate, even dangerous, attempt to politicize the bureau.

Democrats want the FBI to “investigate” an alleged assault from 35 or 36 years ago as if it were a federal crime. But the confirmation of a judicial nominee is not a criminal event. It is a political process under which the Senate has the responsibility to exercise its advice and consent power.

The FBI’s role is to perform a background check that provides confidential information to the White House about the character and integrity of the nominee. In a criminal probe, FBI agents offer judgments in their 301 reports about the credibility of the people they interview. But in background investigations, or BIs as they’re called, the FBI does not provide commentary or issue judgments.

And thank heaven because to do so would be to turn investigators into political judges. No matter how well intentioned, agents would have to include their subjective view of the information they collected, or the credibility of the witnesses they interviewed. This would inevitably corrupt the bureau and its agents, who are unelected career employees.

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Clinton, Trump and Authoritarianism The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee pitches a new edition of her campaign memoir. By James Freeman

By on September 19th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-trump-and-authoritarianism-1537385882

Still holding on to ‘16 as long as she can, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is out with a new, expanded version of her campaign memoir, “What Happened.” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reports that the book “has a big new caboose” with much additional verbiage about “what has happened in the past year.” The big new literary caboose features claims of a Trumpian assault on our constitutional norms, but is bound to raise new questions about Mrs. Clinton’s own commitment to such norms.

Last night the former Secretary of State appeared on Ms. Maddow’s program and seems to have made news by warning that our duly elected President might exercise his authority to fire some of his un-elected subordinates. Mrs. Clinton spoke about Trump supporters:

I don`t think that those people really fully appreciate what is potentially possible under this presidency. What I worry about, Rachel, is that after this election, this president`s going to wholesale fire people. That`s my prediction for tonight… if we don`t have one or both houses of Congress in place, he will be even more uncontrollable and unaccountable. He will fire people in the White House. He will fire people in his administration who he thinks are crossing him, questioning him, undermining him.

She may not be calling Trump voters “deplorables” any more—at least not publicly. Now she’s simply suggesting that they didn’t know what they were doing when they selected the President. Mrs. Clinton then elaborated on her view of the way presidential power is constrained:

… the president is close to being uncontrollable. There are people still in there who by their own admission are trying to hold on to prevent even worse things from happening, and at some point, the American public has to say, number one, I may disagree with Democrats, I may disagree with the direction of this administration, but one thing I believe in is we have to have checks and balances. That`s why we have to vote for Democrats in November.

The constitutional scholars in the crowd may by this point be thanking their lucky stars that America did not end up with a President operating under the belief that she is accountable to the authority of her staff. As a federal judge named Brett Kavanaugh has noted, the President does not enjoy some of the executive authority under our Constitution, but all of it. It’s also disturbing that Mrs. Clinton seems to hold the mistaken belief that constitutional checks and balances only exist when people vote for Democrats.

Regardless of her confusion about the structure of the American republic, she nonetheless writes confidently about what she casts as a constant attack on the U.S. political system. Ms. Maddow shared a passage from Mrs. Clinton’s revised memoir:

The corruption of the Trump administration is breathtaking. Our democratic institutions and traditions are under assault every day. There may not be tanks in the streets and the administration`s malevolence may be constrained by now by its incompetence, but make no mistake, our democracy is in crisis.

Mrs. Clinton shared more of the story in last night’s interview:

I do say in the afterword that I, like every other American, hope for the best, wanted to give our new President the benefit of the doubt. But the actions that we have seen coming from the White House and this Administration, in the nearly two years since the election, have raised all kinds of signal flares, alarm bells about what is happening to our democracy. And put aside partisanship and all of the ideological concerns, we have to defend the fundamental values and ideals of the American democracy.

It’s unclear at one point Mrs. Clinton wanted to give our new President the benefit of the doubt, given that she endorsed the protests against him that occurred on his first full day in office in January of 2017. As for the alleged assaults against American institutions, she said last night:

Well what I`m worried about is that these authoritarian tendencies that we have seen at work in this Administration with this President, left unchecked, could very well result in the erosion of our institutions to an extent that we`ve never imagined possible here.

That certainly sounds scary—greater destruction to our democratic institutions than we’ve even imagined! Given this commentary from the former secretary of State, Ms. Maddow naturally asked about impeachment:

MADDOW: Do you have thoughts on that about whether or not that`s something that Democrats should put on the table right away if they get control of Congress?

CLINTON: I think there should be a much broader agenda and I know it`s difficult to imagine having the Congress work on so many issues at the same time. Because it does require a level of organization and follow-through that is hard and I know that having been there. If there is evidence that comes up about high crimes and misdemeanors, yes, it should be followed through on but there are so many other things that need to be addressed.

If you look at what this Administration has done with respect to regulations on everything from asbestos to pesticides to labor concerns. This is going to begin to really have adverse consequences on many Americans. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Tony Thomas: The Scientific Method: Hate, Spite, Spleen

By on September 19th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2018/09/scientific-method-hate-spite-spleen/

As all who browsed the infamous Climategate emails will know, the men and women of science can go to almost any lengths to suppress, harass, slander and deride those whose theories are at odds with their own. Well guess what? It’s not just climateers who are at home in the gutter.

In the trillion-dollar global warming controversy, how objective is the science community? Scientists claim to be a priestly and virtuous caste concerned for truth and for the welfare of the planet. Ex-PM Kevin Rudd’s formulation went that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was the work of 4000 “humorless guys in white coats”.[i] Human-caused global warming is so contentious that it’s hard to step back and look objectively at the white-coated practitioners. So let’s switch to a less important science controversy and observe how scientists behave.

Here’s the case study: Was it an asteroid or volcanoes that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago? The topic doesn’t get anyone emotional. The arguments have nothing to do with electricity bills, there is no cause for dumping prime ministers, capitalism is not at stake, and world government is not required. My dinosaur-debate text is a 9000-word blockbuster by Bianca Bosker in the latest (September) issue of The Atlantic. which informs us that the dinosaur researchers’ behavior is appalling. Name-calling. Blackmailing over academic careers. Data-tampering. Boycotts. Grant-snaffling. Peer review corruption. Consensus-touting… As you discover the details, you might notice parallels with the climate wars. Just one tiny example: $444m taxpayer money thrown to purported Barrier Reef saviors, while James Cook University sacks Professor Peter Ridd who challenged the reef alarmists’ data.

Now back to dinosaurs. In 1980, Luis Alvarez, who had already won the 1968 Nobel Prize for physics, made his claim that an asteroid’s hit finished the big lizards. This pitted the “Impacters” against the “Volcanists”, who blamed eruptions. The Impacters say a 9km-wide asteroid hit at Chicxulub by the Gulf of Mexico with the force of about 10 billion Hiroshima bombs, creating fireballs, earthquakes and a long darkness: an Old Testament version of hell, as The Atlantic puts it. These Impacters insist the science is now settled to near-total certainty. It’s as settled as evolution, they say, “The case is closed.”

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For BDSers, Holding Eurovision in Israel Is a Bridge Too Far By Bruce Bawer

By on September 19th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/next-year-in-jerusalem/

Hardly anybody in America cares about the annual Eurovision Song Contest, and that’s just as it should be, given that on the whole, it’s almost as horrible a viewing experience these days as the Oscars or Emmys. But in Europe, Eurovision is as big as ever – almost as big a draw as the Super Bowl in the U.S., if you can imagine a Super Bowl that no straight man would ever be caught dead watching, but that is a magnet for gays, teenage girls, gays, a scattering of the senile and feebleminded who happened to have left their TVs tuned to the wrong channel, and gays.

First held in 1956, Eurovision is broadcast every year from the homeland of the winner of the previous year’s contest. This year, the winner was an Israeli chanteuse named Netta, whose song was not appreciably better or worse than most of its competitors – which is to say that, for anyone with the slightest hint of musical taste, it was sheer dreck. But that’s not what matters. On a continent with precious few cultural institutions to hold it together, or to provide a pretense of unity, Eurovision is, to coin a phrase, a bridge-builder.

For many, alas, Israel, this time around, has proven to be a bridge too far.

Israel has won Eurovision exactly three times before. The first time was in 1978; in 1979, accordingly, the competition was held in Jerusalem. Yes, Jerusalem, the city that European authorities today refuse to acknowledge as a part of Israel. Remarkably, Israel won Eurovision again in 1979, but wasn’t able to serve as host in 1980 because the date conflicted with a national holiday. Israel had to wait until 1998 for its third victory. Its representative that year was an M-to-F transgender artist named Dana International, who sang a tune called “Diva.” In 1999, thanks to him/her, the contest again took place in Jerusalem.

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