Displaying posts categorized under

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Absurdity Reigns: Of Want Ads and Counter-Radicalization Patrick Dunleavy

The theater of the absurd seems to have found a place to perform in the current atmosphere created by the threat of Islamic terrorism in both Europe and the United States.

Belgium, which has seen its deeply-rooted radical Islamic nature exposed by the attacks in Paris and Brussels, thinks it has the answer to the phenomenon of Islamic radicalization. The Muslim Executive of Belgium placed an ad seeking counselors to deradicalize inmates. The advertisement lists the following qualifications, looking for candidates with “sufficient religious knowledge” and a “resistance to stress.”

In essence, Belgium outsourced hiring for this experimental state-run deradicalization program to the country’s religious leaders.

It’s a bad idea that cannot work, and is especially untenable if Americans tried to follow suit.

Can you imagine if, after any terrorist attack or plot in the United States, instead of responding with force against the terrorist organizations that perpetrated those heinous acts, we simply placed an advertisement in the help wanted section of a newspaper announcing the job opening for someone who could “cure the problem”?

We’d call it what it is, naive foolishness.

Yet 15 years after 9/11, we find that some have actually taken that approach to the threat of Islamic radicalization and the acts of terrorism it produces.

In European city after city – Brussels, Copenhagen, Paris, Toulouse – we have seen innocent civilians – men, women, and children – maimed or killed by people who were radicalized. Now we know that many of the terrorists were radicalized while serving time in prison for petty offenses. It was in the cauldron of the penitentiary that they were exposed to radical Islamic terrorists as well as to literature and clergy that facilitated their transition from crook to jihadist.

The United States is not immune to this disease. In Chattanooga, Garland, Texas, New York City, Philadelphia, San Bernardino and elsewhere individuals who had become radicalized committed attacks and murder in the name of Allah.

Authorities know that the journey to Islamic radicalization may take many paths including social media, videos, literature, or a charismatic facilitator. But the end result is always the same. It produces people who are willing to kill anyone, including themselves, while thinking they are pleasing God. False promises of virgins and paradise spur them on.

Can Trump save our infrastructure? Clarence Schwab

I followed with excitement Congress’ efforts to pass legislation in 2008 and 2010 to maintain and upgrade the crumbling U.S. infrastructure. Such infrastructure investment would have generated needed jobs while assisting economic activity for many years to come. But Congress failed to pass that legislation. This greatly disappointed me and many others in the business and investing world, because such investments are critical to supporting a healthy and expanding economy.

Some may have objected to such funding because they equate it with “stimulus spending;” considering it to offer no sustainable benefit and to increase the federal deficit. But infrastructure investment—unlike stimulus spending, which gives benefits only during the time during which funds are spent—would generate, every year for decades, increased economic activity, higher incomes, and greater tax revenues. That revenue would be sufficient to not only pay back the debt initially incurred with interest, but to also generate profit. Once begun, long-lived projects can also create expectations of more economic activity and buoy business and consumer confidence.

Thus, maintaining and upgrading our country’s crumbling infrastructure should be among any candidate’s highest domestic priorities—but which candidate in this presidential election has the best chance to make this happen? So far, only Hillary Clinton has offered a comprehensive proposal to address this critical issue. Only Mrs. Clinton has committed to submitting that proposal to Congress within the first hundred days in office. But here’s the tougher question: which candidate is the best person to get the job done? Here are two key considerations to help us decide:

1) Which of the candidates would more likely fight against the wrongheaded Washington thinking that refuses to allow investment in maintaining our infrastructure, and insist on making such investment a cornerstone of domestic policy?

2) Which of the candidates, if president, would more likely work productively with Congress to enact legislation that supports infrastructure investment?

I do not yet support any candidate, and as a registered Independent in New York, I was not permitted to vote in either primary. However, I know that Mr. Trump has a successful track record building projects and that he mentions in speeches the need to upgrade our infrastructure even if he has not yet offered a written proposal.

June 6, 1944 – July 1944 The Normandy Invasion

World War II — D-Day, the Allied Invasion of Normandy – https://www.dday.org/history/d-day-the-invasion/overview.html
It is hard to conceive the epic scope of this decisive battle that foreshadowed the end of Hitlers dream of Nazi domination. Overlord was the largest air, land, and sea operation undertaken before or since June 6, 1944. The landing included over 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes, and over 150,000 service men.

 After years of meticulous planning and seemingly endless training, for the Allied Forces, it all came down to this: The boat ramp goes down, then jump, swim, run, and crawl to the cliffs. Many of the first young men (most not yet 20 years old) entered the surf carrying eighty pounds of equipment. They faced over 200 yards of beach before reaching the first natural feature offering any protection. Blanketed by small-arms fire and bracketed by artillery, they found themselves in hell.

When it was over, the Allied Forces had suffered nearly 10,000 casualties; more than 4,000 were dead. Yet somehow, due to planning and preparation, and due to the valor, fidelity, and sacrifice of the Allied Forces, Fortress Europe had been breached.

Obama’s Victims: Released Criminal Illegals Commit Rape, Murder, Molestation The astronomical re-offense rate of the predators the president sets loose in our communities. Michael Cutler

On June 4, 2016 The Boston Globe published a report, “Criminal immigrants reoffend at higher rates than ICE has suggested” that focused on information the newspaper was finally able to obtain by filing a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act that sought to obtain the database of criminal aliens who were released by ICE. The roughly five year odyssey finally yielded the information the administration attempted to conceal from the public- including, incredibly- even law enforcement agencies.

The article included the links to the Timeline of the Globe’s lawsuit – It’s nearly a five-year saga.

This eye-opening report began with this excerpt:

They were among the nation’s top priorities for deportation, criminals who were supposed to be sent back to their home countries. But instead they were released, one by one, in secret across the United States. Federal officials said that many of the criminals posed little threat to the public, but did little to verify whether that was true.

It wasn’t.

A Globe review of 323 criminals released in New England from 2008 to 2012 found that as many as 30 percent committed new offenses, including rape, attempted murder, and child molestation — a rate that is markedly higher than Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have suggested to Congress in the past.

San Jose police chief who allowed mob attacks on Trump supporters is affiliated with La Raza By Thomas Lifson

San Jose, California disgraced itself last week, allowing rioters to attack people exiting a political rally for the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Now, thanks to Aleister of Gateway Pundit, we know that the police chief of that city, Eddie Garcia, who admitted that he instructed his officers not to intervene and arrest the attackers, is aligned with an extremist race-based group, La Raza (Spanish for “The Race”):

This is a screen-cap from his Twitter account:

The La Raza Roundtable of California celebrated when Garcia was sworn in.

This is how the Roundtable describes itself:

La Raza Roundtable brings together community organizations, community leaders, elected officials, private and public sector representatives in leadership capacities that can impact positive change for La Raza.

Garcia has released a laughable statement in which he suggests that the police didn’t arrest the violent thugs because it would have just made them angrier.

Trump and the judge – It’s not about race, but the rule of law By Brian C. Joondeph

Watch any cable new show panel discussing Donald Trump, including MSNBC this week, and quite predictably you will hear that Trump is a racist. The latest flap is over the judge overseeing the Trump University lawsuit. The judge is of Mexican heritage and Trump raised concerns as to whether the judge can be impartial based on Trump’s hard line stance against illegal immigration from Mexico.

“I’m building a wall. I’m trying to keep business out of Mexico.” Trump said. “He’s of Mexican heritage, and he’s very proud of it, as I am of where I come from.”

Is this about race? Or judicial fairness?

Regarding race, “Mexican” is not a race. In actuality, the federal government maintains five racial groupings – white, black, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian/Hawaiian, completely divorced from any anthropological or scientific understanding of race. Mexican is counted by the feds as part of the Hispanic racial group, as are most residents of Central and South America, even though Mexicans racially are 60% Mestizo (mixed Amerindian/Spanish), 30% Amerindian, and 9% European in racial makeup. Trump made no mention of the judge being Hispanic or of any of the racial groups making up Mexico’s population, instead only of his Mexican ancestry. Perhaps a fine distinction, but a difference nonetheless.

Trump’s concern is instead about judicial impartiality. The judge in question, Gonzalo Curiel, is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of San Diego, a group that claims it is not affiliated with the National Council of La Raza, but which lists that group, strongly opposed to the Trump candidacy, on its website as part of its “community.” Even the US Supreme Court acknowledges selective justice based on race. The recently upended the death sentence of a black Georgia man convicted by an all-white jury. Meaning that race or ethnicity might prevent judicial fairness.

To be sure, Donald Trump could have spoken more carefully and clearly, instead of initially referring to Judge Curiel, born in the USA, as Mexican, and relying on his affiliations and his serving on a scholarship selection committee that chose an illegal alien to receive funding to attend law school. So why wouldn’t Donald Trump be concerned about the rule of law being applied fairly?

Because it often is not.

Angela Davis and Radical Chic 2016 Acquitted of murder, tenured in academia, feted by the mayor’s wife in a ritzy setting made possible by the system she loathes. Roger Kimball

Saturday marked the 44th anniversary of Angela Davis’s acquittal on charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy. Remember Angela Davis? I asked several of my younger colleagues: No one under 35 had heard of her. But the former Black Panther, recipient of the Soviet Union’s Lenin Peace Prize, and two-time vice-presidential candidate on the Communist Party ticket with Gus Hall, was once a household name. That was enough for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, which last Thursday bestowed on Ms. Davis the 2016 Sackler Center First Award, “honoring women who are first in their fields.”

Previous honorees include the novelist Toni Morrison, Miss Piggy and Anita Hill—pioneers all, no question. Ms. Davis is surely the first person to have parlayed an appearance on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list into a tenured professorship at the University of California.

The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium at the Brooklyn Museum was packed to overflowing for the ceremony. It began with a songfest. A couple dozen children from the Manhattan Country School, a boutique “progressive” institution, sang what seemed like 40 or 50 verses of “We Shall Overcome.” Elizabeth A. Sackler, chairwoman of the Brooklyn Museum and scion of Alfred M. Sackler, who made a large part of his considerable fortune marketing the painkiller OxyContin, introduced the evening. She noted proudly that she had grandchildren attending the school where singing “We Shall Overcome” is a daily ritual.

The evening also featured a welcome by Chirlane McCray, wife of Warren Wilhelm Jr., known to most New Yorkers as Mayor Bill de Blasio. The bulk of the evening was taken up with rituals of self-congratulation and a screening of a mercifully abridged “educational” version of “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners,” a 2012 documentary about the signal event in Ms. Davis’s career as a radical: her arrest, prosecution and exoneration. There followed a brief conversation between Ms. Davis and the prima donna Ms. of all Ms.’s, Gloria Steinem. Kathy Boudin, the former member of the Weather Underground who was convicted of murder in 1981, was also in attendance. It was old-home week for wizened radical chic. CONTINUE AT SITE

Will the Media Also Examine the Clinton For-Profit Education Scandal?by Roger Aronoff

Is the race for the White House really coming down to which presidential candidate was tied to the less scandal-plagued for-profit school? Not if the media have anything to say about it. They only want you to know about one of them.

We have seen an endless run of articles and TV segments focusing on Trump University. How does it look? Well, a former sales director there said that “…Trump University was only interested in selling every person the most expensive seminars they possibly could.”

Trump claims that “98% of those people liked the school,” and gave it great report cards, according toCNN. There are currently three lawsuits focusing onTrump University, including one by the New York State Attorney General. Trump has pointed to U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage as a likely factor in the treatment he has received from the class action lawsuits—treatment which he calls unfair. You can read plenty on that issue elsewhere and decide for yourself.

While many Republicans who have reluctantly endorsed Trump view his comments about Judge Curiel as a costly, unforced error that makes it harder for them to publicly defend him, one fact that could play to his advantage is that the law firm behind one of the class action lawsuits has paid the Clintons $675,000 in speaking fees since 2009, which is more than they’ve collected from any other law firm. Politics obviously plays a big part in this saga.

And that’s just the beginning. The real story deals with Laureate Education, whose connection to the Clintons was revealed in Peter Schweizer’s book Clinton Cash. More than $16 million was paid to Bill Clinton through a shell corporation, after which more than $55 million American taxpayer dollars flowed out of Hillary Clinton’s State Department to a non-profit run by Laureate CEO Douglas Becker.

Obama on Ramadan: Reject ‘Voices That Seek to Limit Our Religious Freedom’ By Bridget Johnson

President Obama ushered in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan today by stressing that the United States is “blessed with Muslim communities as diverse as our nation itself.”

“For many, this month is an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience, compassion for those less fortunate, and unity across communities. Each lesson is profound on its own, and taken together forms a harmonious whole,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

“As Muslim Americans celebrate the holy month, I am reminded that we are one American family. I stand firmly with Muslim American communities in rejection of the voices that seek to divide us or limit our religious freedoms or civil rights,” he said. “I stand committed to safeguarding the civil rights of all Americans no matter their religion or appearance. I stand in celebration of our common humanity and dedication to peace and justice for all.”

The president added that “far too many Muslims may not be able to observe Ramadan from the comfort of their own homes this year or afford to celebrate Eid with their children.”

“We must continue working together to alleviate the suffering of these individuals. This sacred time reminds us of our common obligations to uphold the dignity of every human being,” Obama said. “We will continue to welcome immigrants and refugees into our nation, including those who are Muslim.”

The return of tuberculosis to the United States By Thomas Lifson

Another aspect of President Obama’s “fundamental transformation” appears to be the return of tuberculosis to the United States, adding one more dimension of third world status to our new way of life. A highly communicable and fatal disease, TB is spread by coughing, making its spread in crowded environments – theatres, subways, schools, you name it — particularly likely.

One of the epic battles in the history of public health in the United States was the (until now) successful effort to contain it. I vividly remember returning to the United States from Tokyo in 1968 on a flight that had many Filipinos connecting from Manila. They were required at that time to bring dated chest x-rays certifying that they did not carry TB, and the line of them at the health screening desk at JFK airport was long and slow.

Those days are gone, and our federal government is actively bringing TB Carriers into the United States and dispersing them among our polulation. Consider just two stories today. Michael Parker Leahy at Brietbart:

Two workers at Mercy Hospital and Abbot Northwestern Hospital, both located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area and owned by Allina Health, have been diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB).

“I can confirm that one hospital worker at Mercy Hospital and one hospital worker at Abbott Northwestern Hospital were diagnosed with active TB,” Allina Health Vice President of Marketing and Communications David Kanihan tells Breitbart News. (snip)

The open ended nature of the Allina Health statement released on Friday — “In late May, Allina Health began notifying 141 people who had been patients at either Abbott Northwestern Hospital or Mercy Hospital earlier this year that they may have been exposed to tuberculosis (TB). At each location, we learned that a worker who helped deliver care had TB.” (emphasis added) — raises more questions than it answers.

It is not clear when in 2016 the active TB cases in these two Allina Health workers were diagnosed, or when Allina Health first began communicating with the Minnesota Department of Health about these cases.