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Ruth King

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Unaccountable Big Media Personified By Julie Kelly

By on July 6th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/06/unaccountable-big-media

As Americans were finalizing their holiday plans on July 3, the New York Times quietly announced that Ali Watkins, the reporter caught up in a federal investigation into illegal leaks of classified information, would be reassigned rather than fired.

Executive editor Dean Baquet confirmed Watkins, 26, would be moved from the paper’s D.C. bureau to its New York headquarters, “where she will be closely supervised and have a senior mentor.”

“We hold our journalists and their work to the highest standards,” Baquet said in a statement. “We are giving Ali an opportunity to show that she can live up to them. I believe she can. I also believe that The Times must be a humane place that can allow for second chances when there are mitigating circumstances.”

Get that, all you ambitious J-school students? Even though Baquet admits his reporter flouted the basic ethical standards of journalism as well as the paper’s internal conduct guidelines, she can keep her job. You can cheat, lie, break the company’s rules, embarrass an entire profession and you will still get to work at one of the nation’s top newspapers! Polish up those résumés, kids!

Press Complicity
The Ali Watkins matter exposes everything that is wrong with the American media. A young reporter trades sex-for-scoops with a powerful man more than 30 years her senior and it’s excused as business-as-usual; the man, James Wolfe—who is responsible for safeguarding classified documents for the Senate Intelligence Committee—illegally leaks government secrets to her to slander Trump associates and boost the politically motivated Trump-Russia collusion hoax; editors at other news organizations not only know about the affair, but hire her because of it so she can continue to access secrets about the Trump-Russia probe; when her tawdry, unethical behavior is disclosed only after Wolfe is arrested for lying to the FBI about their relationship, her peers in the press rush to her defense; and arrogant media overlords apply a different set of standards to their own profession and expect the government to consider reporters a protected class.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

History’s Bad Ideas Are an Inspiration for Progressives By Victor Davis Hanson *****

By on July 6th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/06/historys-bad-ideas-are-an-inspiration

What we now consider stupid and dangerous ideas of the past, progressives see as useful in the present.

Even liberal historians usually label as disastrous two decisions by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration: the adoption of the Earl Warren-McClatchy newspaper inspired plan to intern Japanese-American citizens and the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937—better known as FDR “court-packing scheme.”

The latter was a crazy scheme to remake the Supreme Court, given that Roosevelt wanted no more judicial interference in the implementation of the New Deal. And yet he had no recourse until slow-coach judicial retirements opened up new appointments of compliant progressive justices. In the interim, the convoluted proposal would have allowed Roosevelt to select a new—and additional justice—to the Supreme Court for every sitting judge who had reached 70 years, 6 months, and had not retired. And in theory, he could pack on 6 more judges, creating a 15-member court with a progressive majority.

The embarrassing plan properly died.

But progressives once again are advocating something like it, now that they fear Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee might cement a 5-4 hard conservative majority—and with a possible third appointment opening up in the next 30 months. Democrats nonchalantly talk of the Kennedy slot as a “swing” vote, which in these supposedly dark times must for now be institutionalized.

They are without any self-reflection that they never entertained any such notion that a Democrat-selected justice might “evolve,” “mature,, or “grow” into become a swing Kennedy-like apostate from Left, much less that a Kagan or Sotomayor would ever evolve into a right-wing mirror image version of a Justice Brennan, Souter, Stevens, or Warren.

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Report: Mueller Calls on More Prosecutors to Help with Expanding Russia Probe By Mairead McArdle

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/report-robert-mueller-asks-doj-fbi-for-assistance-in-russia-probe/

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly calling for more manpower to assist him with the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that Mueller is asking veteran prosecutors from the Justice Department and U.S. attorneys’s offices, as well as FBI agents, for help with new legal battles that have cropped up as a result of his investigation. Though he is not adding to his team of 17 federal prosecutors, he has called on investigators in New York, Alexandria, Va., Pittsburgh, and other cities to help him.

Permanent Justice Department units have actually spent more money ($9 million) on the Russia probe than Mueller’s team ($2.3 million). Mueller was tasked by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election, and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

Other such matters have indeed arisen, including financial crimes by former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mueller is also reportedly looking at Trump’s personal financial records from well before the campaign began. He has so far handed down 20 indictments, and five of those charged have pled guilty, including former national-security adviser Michael Flynn, who admitted lying to the FBI.

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IRAN’S ECONOMY IS TANKING: JED BABBIN

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/5/sanctions-can-ruin-the-economy-but-wont-free-iran-

To the surprise of no sentient person, North Korea is dissembling instead of disassembling its nuclear weapons. It is making no move toward denuclearization and instead is finishing the expansion of a key missile manufacturing facility. President Trump’s summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un served only to demonstrate Mr. Kim’s intractability.

Mr. Trump is having much more success with Iran, North Korea’s partner in developing nuclear weapons and missiles. After the president exited the 2015 Obama-Iran deal in May he has taken a hard line by re-imposing economic sanctions on Tehran which are proving effective in weakening Iran’s economy and the ayatollahs’ regime.

Most importantly, for the first time since 2009, large violent protests against the regime are occurring in many of Iran’s big cities, including Tehran.

Unemployment is up, inflation is soaring and the Iranian currency has lost half its value this year. In 2017, the Iranian rial traded at about 43,000:1 against the dollar. It began to weaken leading up to Mr. Trump’s action in May and the rial is now trading at about 75,000:1 against the dollar.

The currency crash is clearly driven by Iranian panic buying of dollars in response to Mr. Trump’s actions. Unlike North Korea, Iran doesn’t have China acting as a sugar daddy to prop up its economy and its regime. The Obama-Iran agreement served to do that by undoing the economic sanctions against Iran and freeing Iran to sell its oil.

Because Iran’s economy is supported primarily by oil sales to South Korea, India, China, Japan and Turkey, the president wants to cut those sales. He plans to slap sanctions on any nation that doesn’t cut off Iranian oil imports by Nov. 4. Mr. Trump reportedly wants to give buyers of Iranian crude time to reduce their imports (which accounts for the delay until November) and may grant temporary waivers of sanctions to nations that make a significant effort to reduce them by that date.

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Expose the Palestinian ‘Refugee’ Scam Obama concealed a myth-smashing report. Trump can reveal it to the world. By Richard Goldberg and Jonathan Schanzer

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/expose-the-palestinian-refugee-scam-1530833146

If President Trump wants to promote peace in the Middle East, his first step should be to declassify a key State Department report that would end the myth of Palestinian “refugees.”

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is singularly devoted to the Palestinian refugee issue. Unrwa labels more than five million Palestinians “refugees”—an impossible figure. The first Arab-Israeli war, in 1948, yielded roughly 800,000 Palestinian Arab refugees. Perhaps 30,000 remain alive today, but Unrwa has kept the refugee issue alive by labeling their descendants—in some cases great-great-grandchildren—as “refugees,” who insist on the “right of return” to their ancestors’ homes. Israel categorically rejects this demand.

Unrwa’s operations run counter to the broader mission of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is to resettle those displaced by war. Unrwa’s mission, on the other hand, keeps the conflict’s embers glowing by refusing to resettle Palestinians in neighboring countries or even in the Palestinian territories.

If Mr. Trump wants his peace plan to have a chance, he has to challenge false Palestinian narratives. He did this by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the U.S. Embassy there. For decades, Palestinian leaders issued maximalist claims on Jerusalem. Mr. Trump’s move sent the message that making peace requires accepting reality.

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Peter Wales Fascists, Faux and Real

By on July 5th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/07/fascists-faux-real/

We all know about projection and the human inclination to perceive one’s own frailties, flaws and follies in others. These days the concept is reradily observed. Look at those on the Left so loudly denouncing as ‘fascists’ all and sundry who disagree and you will find the genuine lovers of jackboots.

Wikipedia is not always the most reliable of sources, but its definition of fascism is a reasonable starting point for discussion. A fascist is a follower of a political philosophy characterized by authoritarian views, desire for a strong central government, and no tolerance for opposing opinions. All forms of socialism, including Germany’s national socialism, are inherently fascist. They embody the two key identifying factors of fascism; strong central government and no tolerance for opposing views.

So what about the US president the media consistently denounce as a fascist, an idiot, and “literally Hitler”?

The Trump administration has removed red tape as fast as practically possible, repealing twenty-two regulations for every one enacted. This removes the brakes on private effort and enterprise, and shifts power away from government to the people. The opposite of fascism.

One of the first actions of the Trump administration was to reduce taxes. This gives more wealth and more freedom of choice to the people, while reducing the power of government. The opposite of fascism.

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It’s Preposterous To Put The United States In The 10 Most Dangerous Countries For Women To equalize the plight of the American woman to that of a woman living in Syria or warring countries in Africa is absurd.

By on July 5th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/05/preposterous-put-united-states-10-dangerous-countries-women/

The Thomson Reuters Foundation recently published a contrived poll of 550 experts in women’s studies about the most “dangerous” countries for women, and the result seems to suggest facts no matter so long as whatever is said fits the prescribed narrative. The United States astonishingly made the top ten “most dangerous countries in the world for women” in the survey, and was tied for third with Syria in terms of sexual assault and rape.

To claim that the United States would make the list of top ten most dangerous countries for women is beyond disingenuous; its outrageous. There are more than ten war zones in the world right now (Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, the Congo, Myanmar, Mali, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Yemen, and Iraq). In these war zones, women are regularly and routinely raped, murdered, and enslaved.

Syria alone has claimed almost half a million lives. The Islamic State gained international infamy for routinely enslaving women and using them as sex slaves. Yemen, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Egypt, Somalia, and Iraq are also plagued by similarly brutal insurgencies. In Yemen, more than seven million starve to death as a civil war rages on. In Libya, militias run migrant camps and auction off women and children at slave markets they have created. The Congolese government is accused of using rape as a terror weapon on its own population. Government soldiers were ordered to rape mothers and daughters on top of the bodies of their husbands.

Beyond the brutal war zones and hotspots, violence and oppression are still horrifically imposed on the world’s women. In the Middle East and several other countries, women are restricted to second-class citizens. These countries sentence women to death for adultery and apostacy. Honor killings are widespread across the Gulf States and South Asia. In many Mideast and North African countries, a man can escape penalty for rape by marrying the victim. Dozens of nations from North Africa to the Philippines, which wasn’t mentioned, also hold that same loophole. In Egypt, a country the list fails to mention, the government is disappearing tens of thousands of men and women. Its police force is using rape to torture its kidnapped victims.

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After Pressure Campaign, President Trump Announces Scott Pruitt’s Resignation As EPA Head By Juliana Knot

By on July 5th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/05/trump-announces-scott-pruitts-resignation/

Pruitt advocated for dismantling many of the Obama-era environmental rules during his short tenure, including managing the exit from the Paris climate accord and proposing solutions to the Flint water crisis. He also recommended higher standards of scientific research for the agency.

The EPA under Pruitt has come under intense media scrutiny for accusations of ethics violations, including private jet travel, contacts with energy executives, and trying to find his wife a job. Information requests to the agency spiked to as many as 60 a day last year, “many so broadly worded that it will take years to answer,” reported the Washington Examiner. Many on the Right noted that Pruitt’s behavior was either similar or better than that of previous EPA administrators.

Pruitt also worked to cut the agency’s budget and bought out hundreds of staff. According to CNN, the president spoke highly of Pruitt just a month ago, telling reporters that he was “doing a great job within the walls of the EPA,” and that “we’re setting records.” Trump noted that Pruitt was under attack from the media but just said “We’ll see what happens.”

Pruitt’s replacement will be his deputy, Andrew Wheeler. The Senate confirmed Wheeler as deputy in April in a 53-45 vote, with the support of three Democratic senators.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Canadian libel case hinges on how many Jews Muslim cleric wants ‘eradicated’ By Rachel Ehrenfeld

By on July 5th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/canadian_libel_case_hinges_on_how_many_jews_muslim_cleric_wants_eradicated.html

On June 27, 2018, the Facebook page of New Democrats for BDS, Stephen Ellis, a Toronto-based barrister and solicitor, posted “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” a legal notice saying: “So-called ‘Hate Preacher’ Serves Libel Notices on MP, right-wing media.”

Sheikh Shafiq Hudda accuses several organizations and individuals of defaming him because they misquoted him as wishing for the “eradication” of all 8.2 million Israelis. In fact, he claims, he was praying for the “eradication” of only 6 million Israeli Zionists.

Sheikh Shafiq Hudda’s lawyer’s statement reads:

Over the past week, Sheikh Shafiq Hudda and the Islamic Humanitarian Service (which Hudda directs) both of Kitchener, Ontario, have served Libel Notices on several organizations and individuals, including, but not limited to, the following: B’nai Brith Canada, The Toronto Sun, The Center for Jewish and Israeli Affairs (CIJA) and Peter Kent (MP-Thornhill), Waterloo Region Record.

The serving of a Libel Notice is a requirement under Canada’s Libel and Slander Act to sue for defamation.

“My clients intend to sue for the wildly defamatory comments made by each of these organizations and individuals following the Al-Quds rally of June 9, 2018,” said lawyer Stephen Ellis. “My clients have been accused of preaching hate and calling for genocide when a clear and honest look at the words spoken show a call for an end to unjust empires the world over.”

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Watch: Protesters Blast ICE as Agents Disrupt Child Sex-Trafficking Ring By Mairead McArdle

By on July 5th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/protesters-blast-ice-agents-breaking-up-child-sex-trafficking-ring/

As the national debate on immigration continues to heat up, video from last year has resurfaced of neighbors protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security agents as they broke up a child sex-trafficking ring in California.

People in the West Oakland neighborhood of Oakland, Calif. woke up early one morning last year when they heard ICE agents raiding one of the houses and assumed the agents were arresting illegal immigrants, according to the video from a local CBS News outlet.

The protesters, who crowded around the house, were apparently not given any information by the agents about what was happening.

“It’s been really tough because we have no idea what’s going on in there, and we know that there’s a lot of injustices that have been happening,” said Hadar Cohen, who held a sign reading, “No person is illegal.”

“We care for our neighbors, and we’re for immigration rights.”

The Oakland Police Department confirmed to the CBS station that the operation had nothing to do with immigration enforcement and the agents were acting on a federal search warrant obtained during an ongoing criminal investigation into juvenile sex trafficking.

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