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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Senators’ Criminal Referral of Dossier Author Steele We should want to know if our intelligence agencies were being fed misinformation. By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on January 9th, 2018

Two influential Judiciary Committee senators have referred Christopher Steele to federal law-enforcement officials for criminal investigation. Steele authored the salacious and unverified anti-Trump dossier commissioned by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. The referral was made by Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who chairs Judiciary’s Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee. It is set forth in a brief letter written to the leadership of the epartment and the FBI. Appended to the letter is a non-public classified memorandum.

As our David French outlined on Friday, there has been misguided speculation about what the referral means. This includes rabid claims that it is a stunt intended to delegitimize congressional and special-counsel investigations of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and supposed Trump-campaign collusion therein. At the Washington Examiner, Byron York also had an excellent column over the weekend that did much to clear up the confusion.

Here, in the first of two columns, I address what may be going on regarding representations Steele made to American intelligence officials. In the follow-up, I take up representations those officials made regarding Steele’s dossier.

Let’s start with what a referral is. It’s a request by a peer branch of government that the executive branch conduct a criminal investigation. Lawmakers in their oversight capacity, and judges presiding over legal proceedings, often come across conduct that may violate federal criminal law — particularly, obstructive behavior. Congress and the courts have no power to conduct criminal investigations and prosecutions; in our system, that is solely an executive function. So, members of Congress and judges will refer suspected criminal conduct to the Justice Department and FBI. These referrals are given respectful attention, but they impose no obligation on the executive agencies to investigate.

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Who’s Crazy? Trump or the Anti-Trump Shrinks? Daniel Greenfield

By on January 8th, 2018

In October, 125 psychologists and assorted mental health professionals marched to New York’s City Hall while wearing red tags warning, “DANGER.” Leading the march was Peter Fraenkel, author of Sync Your Relationship, Save Your Marriage, mournfully beating a drum in a solemn march. Fraenkel, a psychologist and “professional drummer” was able to combine his love of drums and hatred of Trump.

The ‘Duty to Warn’ march had begun at New York Law School where the experts demanded that Trump be removed from office based on their inability to understand the 25th Amendment. And then the mental health experts marched to the beat of Fraenkel’s drum in what they insisted was a “funereal and dignified” procession.

“Please wear professional attire or dark clothing,” the mental health experts were instructed. “There will be a slow drum beat, ‘DANGER’ tape, and flashing warning lights.”

The paperwork urged, “Bring a drum if you have one” and, “come as your solemn, concerned self.”

If only the organizers had put a fraction of their obsessive delusions into actually trying to justify the claim on their shiny blue banner that, “Trump is psychologically unfit to lead this country.”

There were no drums when Bandy X. Lee, the organizer of Yale’s ‘Duty to Warn’ conference showed up on Capitol Hill to “brief” Dem politicians about Trump’s mental illness that she diagnosed over Twitter. Lee, a self-proclaimed expert on the prison system, apparently isn’t even currently licensed to practice.

But on Twitter, Bandy X. Lee explained that she had been “licensed on two continents,” has “excellent credentials,” a “flawless ethics history” and speaks “four languages.” On Vox, Lee claimed that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem was a “pathological” example of him “resorting to violence”. Then she blamed him for “an increase in schoolyard bullying.” Appearing on MSNBC, she warned that Trump “could be the end of humankind.”

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IMMIGRATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Mass Migration: The European Commission’s New “Norm” by Alain Destexhe

By on January 8th, 2018

The Commission, based in Brussels, is not elected but, according to EU treaties, it has a monopoly — yes, a monopoly — on initiating legislation at the European level. A Commissioner is an appointed bureaucrat, one for each member state — often a former top politician, now sidelined in his country of origin, therefore with very little democratic legitimacy.

First of all, many of the migrants are not qualified; and second, they receive social benefits so there is little or no incentive for them to work. Articles supporting the claims of the officials — that Europe needs more migrants in order to fund the healthcare and pensions of aging Europeans — neglect that this plan can only succeed IF the migrants work. These assumptions, therefore, appear to be based on ideological bias rather than scientific evidence.

The new norms, like the size of apples or the curvature of cucumbers, should, according to the European Commission, be determined by the European Commission. Migration will not be a question open for debate. It will be a “norm” determined by the Commission.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, recently published a startling opinion, advocating for more immigration as an inescapable reality to which European citizens should just adapt without any further discussion.

The article illustrates much of what is wrong with European institutions, in particular the European Commission, a mixture of bureaucratic arrogance, false creed based on dogma rather than facts, and a disdain for democratic debate. The Commission, based in Brussels, is not elected but, according to EU treaties, it has a monopoly — yes, a monopoly — on initiating legislation at the European level. Each Commissioner is an appointed bureaucrat, one for each member state — often a former top politician, now sidelined in his country of origin, therefore with very little democratic legitimacy.

“It is time to face the truth…. The only way to make our asylum and migration policies future-proof is collectively to change our way of thinking first,” wrote Avramopoulos. Does he think that grass-roots citizens do not think? Like Zeus — another Greek — on Mount Olympus, the truth comes from the upper floor of the Berlaymont building, the official headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels, as a top-down process. Hey, stupid dudes who want to control immigration, just listen the new self-proclaimed God-bureaucrat and shut up because: “we cannot and will never be able to stop migration”. Period.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Canada: Islamist-Leftist-Government Alliance Silences Free Speech by Christine Douglass-Williams

By on January 8th, 2018

“I… make a distinction between those who choose to practice Islam in peace and harmony with others, and those with an agenda to subvert democratic constitutions, demand special privileges over other creeds, and attack innocent people as a supremacist entitlement. It is odd to be removed from a race relations foundation for my private work in criticizing Islam, which is not a race.” — Christine Douglass-Williams, Jihad Watch, December 21, 2017.

Canada’s Motion M-103 puts Islam above all other religions in that any other religion can be discussed openly, criticized openly and even be mocked openly without punishment or state penalty.

“The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — Muslim Brotherhood Plan for North America.

Political Islam espouses the opposite of all I stand for as an activist for human rights for all. I oppose its treatment of women, female genital mutilation (FGM), child brides, killing of gays, goals to obliterate Israel, raping of infidel women, blasphemy laws etc., as any proponent of human rights and those who battle intolerance should.

For writing and warning about political Islam, I was terminated as a director at the federal government’s Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF), an agency usually at arms-length from the federal government.

As I wrote at Jihad Watch:

I have been terminated from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, four months after a threatening letter by Heritage Minister Melanie Joly about my writings on Islam at Jihad Watch,

Joly made good on her threats. The Privy Council has terminated my appointment, despite my years of dedicated commitment to the Foundation, on which I also served as Chair of the Investment Committee, and as a member of the Human Resource and Executive Committees. Why? Because I dared to criticize political Islam on Jihad Watch, and because of My Personal Warning to Icelanders, in which I warned about the deceptive works of Muslim Brotherhood operatives in their infiltration of the West. Their tactics are well documented.

I personally make a distinction between those who choose to practice Islam in peace and harmony with others, and those with an agenda to subvert democratic constitutions, demand special privileges over other creeds, and attack innocent people as a supremacist entitlement. It is odd to be removed from a race relations foundation for my private work in criticizing Islam, which is not a race.

Canadian Press (CP) gave my story balanced coverage. It was run by Post Media outlets, Canoe, The National Post and even Huffington Post. The lengthy Toronto Star story — “Board member of anti-racism agency fired amid accusations of Islamophobic commentary” — however featured a number of far-left, pro-Islamist sources; among them: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), CAIR-CAN/NCCM and the Mosaic Institute.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Should Kill the Iran Nuclear Deal, for the Dissidents and Protesters It endangers global security and bolsters a brutal theocratic regime. Fred Fleitz

By on January 8th, 2018

President Trump will make some important decisions this month that could not only end the controversial 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran but also convey America’s support for Iranian protesters and hasten the overthrow of Iran’s ruling mullahs. By January 12, Mr. Trump must decide whether to renew a waiver of sanctions lifted by the Iran deal—i.e., the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The law requires him to make such a determination every 120 days. By January 15, the president must decide whether he will continue to “decertify” to Congress Iran’s compliance with the agreement.

When President Trump decertified the JCPOA to Congress in October, it looked like he was on track to withdraw from the deal if Congress did not use a 60-day window to pass legislation to toughen or “fix” it. However, even though Congress failed to act, Trump is now being pressured to extend the agreement, as its supporters claim that any action he might take to kill it would play into the hands of Iran’s ruling mullahs.

This approach is wrong. It would sustain a fraudulent agreement that has endangered global security and bolstered a brutal theocratic regime.

None of President Obama’s promises about the JCPOA — that it would keep Iran one year away from a nuclear weapon, improve U.S.–Iran relations, and bring Iran into the community of nations — have been borne out. Instead, the deal has emboldened Iran’s ruling mullahs to continue the nation’s international isolation, as Tehran spends billions of dollars on expensive belligerent activities, money that was made available to it through sanctions relief and that it could have spent to shore up the civilian economy.

There are many reports that the agreement did not appreciably slow Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran continues to make progress toward making nuclear-weapons fuel, as it is allowed under the deal to enrich uranium with over 5,000 centrifuges and to develop advanced centrifuges. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization said in August 2017 that Iran would be able to resume production of 20 percent enriched uranium, which can be quickly converted to weapons-grade uranium — within five days if the JCPOA is revoked.

There are credible reports, including several from German intelligence agencies, that Iran is cheating on the agreement. Senators Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), and Tom Perdue (R., Ga.) raised concerns about Iranian noncompliance and cheating in a July 2017 letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. I also note that Tzvi Kahn, an analyst for Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, penned a brilliant op-ed for The Hill last October, debunking claims by JCPOA defenders that the IAEA has fully certified Iran’s compliance with the agreement.

The Iranian people were supposed to benefit from the Iran deal’s sanctions relief, but this didn’t happen. Instead, Iran’s ruling mullahs wasted billions of dollars in sanctions relief on the military and meddling in regional disputes. Iran’s 2016–17 military budget reportedly increased by 90 percent. In April 2017, Rouhani claimed that it had grown by 145 percent.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Tony Thomas Green from Instinct to Jackboots

By on January 8th, 2018

That catastropharians consider themselves so much brighter and more insightful than the knuckle-dragging rest of us is not news, yet the vaulting arrogance of climate cultists can still surprise. Take the deep-green Forum for the Future, which cheerfully anticipates penal colonies for skeptics.

The Kerguelen islands are horridly cold and windy specks near the Antarctic, populated by a few score of French scientists and several thousand sheep. But to a leading British green group, Forum for the Future, it has enormous potential as an internationally-run penal colony for global warming sceptics.

The Forum’s founder-director is Jonathon Porritt 67, Eton- and Oxford-bred Chancellor of Keele University, adviser to Prince Charles, and Green Party activist. [1] The Forum’s fancy for Kerguelen can be found in its 76-page report “Climate Futures – Responses to Climate Change in 2030”, written in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard, a company which should know better. This scenario, one of five, involves the naughty world delaying the reduction of emissions, for which we must all suffer. The document even conjures a fictional climate criminal and imagines him being deported to Kerguelen in 2028. He is Jean-Claude Bertillon, leader of the No Climate Change Party in Canada, “convicted of denying the existence of climate change”.

The report actually fantasises three penal colonies for climate criminals. The other two are Britain’s frosty South Georgia[2] and the South Island of New Zealand. Written in 2008, the document attempts to show how CO2 emissions will wreck the planet within a couple of decades unless civilisation turns away from the sins of consumerism and economic growth. As we are now almost half-way to the 2030 forecast date it is possible to get a handle on how the Forum’s timeline is working out, and perhaps to gain an inkling of any substance to the report’s assertion that our descendants will look back on us with the same disgust we reserve for the slave-owners of yesteryear.

The authors — and Porritt himself — long for an eco-catastrophe that would eliminate all public doubts about climate doom. Their manifesto says,

“Because of a chilling lack of confidence in our leaders … our only hope would be for an isolated, serious pre-taste of climate change to happen soon enough for the political and behavioral response to have a useful impact.”

This is probably wishful thinking, as Porritt, founder director of Forum for the Future and chair of the UK’s Sustainable Development Commission, pointed out:

‘I have occasionally fantasised about a low mortality-count scenario where a Force Six hurricane takes out Miami, but with plenty of warning so the entire city is evacuated with zero loss of life. The insurance industry in America would collapse because this could be a $50-60 billion climate-related ‘natural’ disaster. The industry wouldn’t be able to cope with that. There would be knock-on pain throughout the global economy, massive, traumatic dislocation. This would act as enough of an injection of physical reality, coupled with financial consequences for leaders to say: ‘Ok, we’ve got it now. This isn’t just about some nasty effects on poor countries: this is devastating for our entire model of progress.’ The response to that would be a negotiated transition towards a very low-carbon global economy that builds increased prosperity for people in more equitable and sustainable ways.’”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Dear Al Franken: About that Forced Resignation… By Michael Walsh

By on January 8th, 2018

Sin in haste, repent at leisure:

A prominent donor to the Democratic Party says she is considering withdrawing support for senators who urged their colleague Al Franken to resign after he was accused of sexual misconduct.

The donor, Susie Tompkins Buell, has been one of the Democratic Party’s most generous supporters for decades. In particular, she has been a champion of female politicians, including Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Maria Cantwell of Washington.

Ms. Buell said in a text message on Saturday that withdrawing support from the senators who called for his resignation was “an option” she was considering. “In my gut they moved too fast,” she wrote, adding that Mr. Franken “was never given his chance to tell his side of the story. For me this is dangerous and wrong,” she added. “I am a big believer in helping more women into the political system but this has given me an opportunity to rethink of how I can best help my party.”

This is what happens during a stampede: people get trampled. And speaking of a stampede:

When Hollywood’s most prestigious organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) — the group of nearly 7,000 actors, directors and other industry types who dole out the Oscars — expelled Harvey Weinstein on Oct. 14,audiences applauded. But by acting so swiftly, a mere nine days after the New York Times first reported allegations of sexual assault against the movie producer, the outfit now finds itself facing a dilemma. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Be Careful What you Wish For By Viv Forbes

By on January 8th, 2018

In today’s crazy world, Western politicians are wasting billions of taxpayer dollars force-feeding costly unreliable green energy in the bizarre belief that this will somehow change Earth’s climate.

Even more incredible, they fear global warmth and seem hell-bent on creating global cooling. They should study climate history. It is snow and ice, cold dry air, and carbon dioxide starvation we need to fear, not a warm, moist, fertile, bountiful atmosphere.

Climate change is natural and unstoppable.

Just 20,000 years ago, Earth was in one of its recurring glacial phases. A thick massive ice sheet smothered Canada, Iceland, Greenland, North Asia, and Europe as far south as London. Much of the animal and plant life of the previous warm era was extinguished. Even in warmer lands not covered by the ice sheet, plants suffered as the cold oceans removed moisture and carbon dioxide plant food from the atmosphere.

Then, because of changing cycles in Earth’s orbit and tilt, reinforced by changing solar cycles, the sun warmed the frozen lands. The great ice sheets melted, sea levels rose and the warming oceans expelled moisture and CO2 plant food into the atmosphere. Plant life recovered. Tundra, forests, grasslands and herbivores advanced towards the pole and fish became abundant in the shallow seas that flooded coastal plains. Hunters, herders, farmers, and fishermen followed the food.

Human population increased greatly. They gave thanks for the warmth, and worshipped the sun.

But the peak of the modern warm era is past, and the natural cycles controlling global temperatures are pointing downwards.

Only an idiot with a death wish for life on Earth would attempt to accelerate our inevitable descent into the next ice age.

Luckily, their costly war on warmth is totally futile, but their war on carbon energy will prove tragically misguided in the cold times ahead.

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Trump Crazy? Like a Fox By James Lewis

By on January 8th, 2018

Hum, ho, the Trump haters have found a new authority figure to swear the man is crazy. Rocketing to fame thanks to the objective media today is a woman with the extraordinary name of Bandy X. Lee.

Dr. Lee, MD, is now in danger of having her license pulled by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for engaging in ethically prohibited long-distance diagnosis without even interviewing the supposed patient in person. In real psychiatry, not the imaginary kind peddled by the NYT-WaPo Axis of Lies, psychiatric diagnosis is serious business, which normally involves a private interview with the clear, legal consent of the patient, an explicit set of criteria covered in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the APA, and an absolute guarantee of privacy in the patient-doctor relationship. Dr. Lee violated all those rules, and in the real world (not in the media narrative) that means her career is at an end. I’ve seen licenses pulled for much less than that.

That is presumably why Dr. Lee’s claimed team of fellow psychiatrists has never been named — if they exist. Lee uses the term “we” in claiming that her extremely dubious “diagnosis” (which does not exist in the DSM) is backed by an unspecified group of fellow “experts.” A real licensing board would suspend her for abusing her license to practice for obvious political payoffs, thereby bringing her profession to public ridicule and contempt.

So what are Trump’s psychiatric symptoms?

Lee’s Exhibit A is Trump’s response to Kim III (a paranoid who is never criticized by Democrats). Kim III boasted about the “big button” on his desk, to launch ICBMs tipped with nukes at the United States of America, Japan, South Korea, and quite possibly China, all within range of North Korea’s ICBMs. In response to Kim’s threat, Mr. Trump tweeted:

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Book Banning Bunkum Trump’s feckless bluster isn’t a threat to the First Amendment.

By on January 8th, 2018

One reason many Americans don’t trust the media is because they treat every Donald Trump outburst as a Defcon 1 level threat to the survival of the republic. The latest example is the panic over Mr. Trump’s legal threat to the publisher of Michael Wolff’s book and his lament that libel laws are too weak.

Mr. Trump had his lawyer send a letter on Thursday to Henry Holt demanding that it “cease and desist” publication of Mr. Wolff’s book. This is a longstanding Trump tactic designed to underscore his claims that a book or article is false. Invariably the threat vanishes as the controversy does.

Mr. Trump tried this with us when we criticized one of his debate performances during the presidential campaign. His lawyer sent a letter threatening the Journal and the editor of these columns, in his personal and professional capacity, with a defamation suit if we didn’t apologize and retract the editorial. We ignored the letter, repeated the criticism, and Mr. Trump dropped the subject.

Mr. Wolff’s book may be partly imagined, as his work often is, but that is no reason to block publication. Unless an author has violated national security, or some contractual agreement with an agency like the CIA, no court is going to ban a book in advance of publication. The Supreme Court declared such “prior restraint” on free speech unconstitutional in the landmark Near v. Minnesota case in 1931. Henry Holt knows this and responded to Mr. Trump’s letter by moving up the publication date.

Mr. Trump’s libel lament is also familiar and feckless bluster. “Libel laws are very weak in this country. If they were strong it would be very helpful,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday at a press event, joining the queue of politicians who wish they could sue journalists.

In February 2016 as a candidate, Mr. Trump declared: “One of the things I’m going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we’re certainly leading. I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” The difference now is that he’s not even claiming he can change the libel laws; he’s merely griping about them.

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