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Standing Up for Freedom . . . By Jay Nordlinger Prague’s Mayor Zdenek Hrib

Posted By on September 10th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/prague-mayor-zdenek-hrib-stands-for-freedom/

Vaclav Havel was the leading dissident in Communist Czechoslovakia, and the first president after the Fall of the Wall. All over the world, he became a byword for freedom, democracy, and human rights. There is still a Havel tradition in the Czech Republic, even if it is not the dominant one.

Havelians, if you will, traveled to Taiwan last week, in a show of support for that brave, beleaguered democracy. Communist China was very unhappy. The trip was a “despicable act,” said a Chinese foreign-ministry spokesman. The foreign minister himself, Wang Yi, said that the delegation’s leader — Milos Vystrcil, president of the Czech senate — would “pay a heavy price.”

A second foreign-ministry spokesman, however, pointed out that the Czech government had “distanced” itself from Vystrcil and his delegation. They did not “represent the government’s policy,” said the spokesman — and he was absolutely right.

The Czech president, Milos Zeman, is a warm supporter of the Chinese government, and of the Russian government as well. This shows the split in Czech society (and Europe more broadly). I will have more to say about Zeman, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin in due course.

Zeman said that the senate president had engaged in a “childish provocation.” He further said that the senate president would be excluded from any further foreign-policy briefings by the government.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Seoul Cracks Down on Dissent Against North Korea Seeking accommodation, the government audits human-rights groups and seeks to outlaw speech. By Joshua Stanton and Sung-Yoon Lee

Posted By on September 10th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/seoul-cracks-down-on-dissent-against-north-korea-11599693108?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

South Korea is the second-greatest threat to human rights on the Korean Peninsula. President Moon Jae-in ordered a crackdown in July on activists protesting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s crimes against humanity. South Korea’s national police have undertaken politically driven audits of more than 100 human-rights organizations, and the president is pushing for new laws to criminalize speech.

Mr. Moon has staked his legacy on improving relations with Pyongyang, but in practice that’s meant taking cues from its vicious dictatorship. On June 4, Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong denounced South Koreans who use balloons to send leaflets across the demilitarized zone. Calling them “human scum” and “mongrel dogs,” Ms. Kim demanded that Seoul “make a law to stop the farce.” Hours later, Seoul said it would ban the leaflet campaigns. Police raided activists’ offices, and the Unification Ministry, which oversees relations with North Korea, revoked the operating licenses of two organizations.

Mr. Moon has also used Korea’s illiberal “criminal defamation” law, under which truth is no defense. He has filed at least 10 defamation lawsuits, personally or through surrogates, against opponents during his political career, including three in April 2017, the month before he was elected and took office. Since then, lawmakers from his party have demanded that Google Korea take down political commentaries they deem “fake news” and used tax probes to target opponents. Police have even investigated campus posters parodying Mr. Moon’s policies.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Cornell faculty-student group demands racial quotas, criticizes ‘colorblind’ practices Sam Dorman

Posted By on September 10th, 2020

https://www.foxnews.com/us/cornell-faculty-student-group-demands-racial-quotas-criticizes-colorblind-practices

The group also wants to prevent undergraduate admissions from being based on SAT/ACT scores.

Dozens of Cornell University faculty, staff, students, and alumni signed onto a letter attacking “colorblind” practices, insisting that the university institute racial quotas and recruit “clusters” of non-White individuals.

The letter, published Monday, launches into a long list of immediate and long-term demands after accusing the Ivy League university of “symbolic” efforts in response to racism.

“As an institution Cornell aspires to the highest principles of civic duty,” the letter reads. “Yet every ‘colorblind’ event, mechanism, and process at the university — from new faculty orientations to selection of endowed positions — perpetuates racial disparities and reinforces an unjust status quo.”

To remedy that, the letter proposes setting benchmarks for the proportion of trustees and faculty of color.

“Increase representation of Black faculty to 7 percent in 2025 and to 10 percent in 2030,” the demand reads.

“Increase representation of other faculty of color to 20 percent in 2025 and 25 percent in 2030, in line with the percentage of new PhDs conferred in the US. Create benchmarks for increasing BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] faculty in those departments and disciplines with the most severe underrepresentation.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Job Openings Surge by 10 Percent to 6.6 Million, Topping Expectations By Tom Ozimek

Posted By on September 9th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/job-openings-surge-by-10-percent-to-6-6-million-topping-expectations_3493679.html

Job openings in the United States, which are a measure of labor demand, rose by 10 percent to 6.6 million in July, while the number of people quitting their jobs rose by 2.1 percent between June and July, suggesting an uptick in confidence in being able to find work.

The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), released Wednesday, showed that the number of job vacancies jumped by 617,000 to 6.6 million on the last day of July, above the 6 million that economists surveyed by FactSet predicted.

Manufacturing saw a 17.9 percent surge in job openings. Industries that saw the largest increases in vacancies were retail trade (172,000), health care and social assistance (146,000), and construction (90,000). The U.S. housing market, in particular, has shown remarkable resilience amid the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus outbreak, with an August report from the U.S. Census Bureau (pdf) showing building permits, a predictor of future activity, rising by 18.8 percent from June to July. Housing starts, meanwhile, surged by 22.6 percent between June and July. In another sign that the economic recovery may be picking up speed, U.S. home sales rose at a record rate for a second straight month in July.

Wednesday’s JOLTS report showed that vacancies were highest in trade, transportation, and utilities (1.292 million), followed by education and health services (1.262 million), and business and professional services (1.2 million), with all three categories seeing growth from the month before.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Peter Schweizer: The Biden Campaign Is Hiding Kamala Harris–Here’s Why

Posted By on September 9th, 2020

https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2020/09/08/peter-schweizer-the-biden-campaign-is-hiding-kamala-harris-heres-why/

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign minimizes Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D-CA) public exposure due to Harris’s lack of charisma, alienation of moderate voters, and exposure of the former vice president’s weak mental and physical condition, said Peter Schweizer, author of Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, and senior contributor at Breitbart News.

Biden’s team explain the former vice president’s rare public appearances as a function of concerns related to the coronavirus. Schweizer noted that if Harris were to be more visible than Biden, it would undermine the ostensible rationale for Biden’s limited visibility.

Schweizer said, “I think that the Biden-Harris campaign is sort of on the horns of a dilemma, because Joe Biden has been scarce on the campaign trail. There’s all kinds of speculation why. The campaign wants to officially say it’s because they’re trying to abide by some kind of COVID restriction to limit travel. I think a lot of observers believe that it has more to do with the health of Joe Biden, [and] the fact that he’s highly vulnerable, but also there are questions about his performance when he does do speeches.”

“If Joe Biden is not out there on the campaign trail and Kamala Harris is, it highlights the fact that they don’t have a policy about campaigning [regarding COVID-19],” determined Schweizer. “It’s just they don’t want Joe Biden out on the campaign trail.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Will America’s Return To Nuclear Power Kill The Dems’ Green New Deal? Let’s Hope So

Posted By on September 9th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/09/will-americas-return-to-nuclear-power-kill-the-dems-green-new-deal-lets-hope-so/

While the media focus on the chaos in American cities and the COVID-19 shutdowns, you might have missed this good news on the energy front: The federal government just approved a new, smaller, safer nuclear power plant design, putting nuclear back on the nation’s menu of energy choices.

It might not seem like much, but until this decade, the last nuclear power plant built in the U.S. was 1977. Today, there are an estimated 96 nuclear power plants producing 20% of all our electricity and half of our non-carbon-based power.

If that sounds impressive, consider this: As recently as the 1990s, we had 116 nuclear plants. Utilities, tired of the non-stop trouble of justifying a perpetual source of clean, CO2-free energy to radical green groups and burdened by enormous regulatory costs, have been decommissioning older plants.

But late last week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a new plan for what’s called a “small modular reactor,” or SMR, designed by Portland-based NuScale Power.

Small, yes, but cheaper and safer, too. And it may be an avatar for an avalanche of new nuclear technologies in the works, including thorium and molten-salt reactors that use spent fuel, which will further cut costs and decrease reliance on fossil fuels.

Some of these are well beyond the drafting board stage.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Right to Civil Rights By Nurit Greenger –

Posted By on September 9th, 2020

https://newsblaze.com/usnews/education/the-right-to-civil-rights_167737/

Brooke Goldstein is The Lawfare Project‘s Founder and Executive Director. Her recent op-ed, rightly calling for, ‘The Time Is Now for a Jewish Civil Rights Movement’ prompts a broad discussion.

It is becoming rather clear that most American Jewish Organizations no longer represent, rather prevaricate, Jewish causes. They have failed American Jewry.

Jewish organizations, some in particular, founded to make sure antisemitism does not occur, failed their fundamental cause. Among several reasons, they are extremely politically correct. For years they have been operating, confronting, on campuses and in the streets of America, the ancient Jew hatred, Antisemitism. Now that is masked as hatred for the state of Israel and Zionism, increased tenfold.

Antisemitism at Stanford University

During an endorsement interview, on March 13, 2020, in front of eight members of the university’s Students of Color Coalition, a student group whose endorsement she was eagerly seeking, due to the group’s previous success in helping dozens win seats in the student senate, Molly Horwitz, 21, a junior student at Stanford University, running for the student senate alleged that she was discriminated against; she faced anti-Semitic questioning.

The lead interviewer asked her, “Given your strong Jewish identity, in the anti-divestment campaign on campus…” The question lead to questioning whether Molly’s Judaism could affect her view of boycotting and divestment from Israel. What then morphed into a contest about campus issues also a fierce discussion on identity and loyalties.

Molly said she was horrified by the question asked. ZOA (Zionist Organization of America) took the right stand and demanded that the interviewer be expelled. Other Jewish organizations were satisfied with Stanford Administration’s pat on the wrist of the accused concealed identity, thinking that if there is a next time they will expel that person.

In today’s lexicon, this is called ‘discriminatory practices.’

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

NYC to Allow Indoor Dining at 25 Percent Capacity, Marking COVID Recovery Milestone By Brittany Bernstein

Posted By on September 9th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nyc-to-allow-indoor-dining-at-25-percent-capacity-marking-covid-recovery-milestone/

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday that he would allow New York City restaurants to reopen for indoor dining at 25 percent capacity beginning September 30.

The announcement comes more than two months after Cuomo and mayor Bill de Blasio put the brakes on a plan to reopen indoor dining at restaurants in light of continued concerns about the spread of coronavirus.

Now that “compliance is better” — New York’s infection rate has stayed below 1 percent for several weeks — “we can now take the next step,” the governor said.  

While the city’s restaurants have suffered economically since the outset of the pandemic, many have tried to get by on outdoor dining and takeout services this summer but have worried what colder weather would hold in store. 

Aside from reduced capacity, restaurants and patrons will face other restrictions including the requirement to wear face coverings when not seated.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

Howard Rotberg : The power of public fantasies: Three years of political libel

Posted By on September 9th, 2020

http://The power of public fantasies: Three years of political libel

Public fantasies are behind 3 years of political libel reflecting not hatred of 1 man, but of American democracy and the rule of law.

Merriam-Webster defines “fantasy” as:“the power or process of creating especially unrealistic or improbable mental images in response to psychological need”;“a creation of the imaginative faculty whether expressed or merely conceived”; or“a mental image or a series of mental images (such as a daydream) so created”

And so, a fantasy most often relates to a private creation of imagination or mental images. It is the stuff of dreams, daydreams, and individual psychology, a way to overcome reality.

Much of the hatred for the State of Israel is based on public fantasies. In Israel itself, recent disclosures may put the left’s cultivation of accusations against Prime Minister Netanyahu in the same category..

We should study more how the fantasies meet the psychological needs of the haters, whether they are Islamists or western leftists. Anti-Semites who are individual sociopaths are much less dangerous than when they turn their fantasies into public group-think among fellow Leftists or Islamists.

Contemporary politics, especially in America, seems to reflect an increasing set of public fantasies, increasingly from the Left, which traditionally embraced a classic liberalism based on reality, but which now embraces fantastical revolution. For example, Michael Brendan Dougherty, writing in National Review, “Dangers for Democrats”, August 31, 2010, states that “the fantasy of ending Donald Trump’s presidency through some kind of apocalyptic and extra-legal confrontation, rather than an election, keeps getting persistent airing on the left.”

Surely the debunked Russian Collusion and Ukrainian Collusion narratives, the bizarre impeachment hearing, the deceit of the Kavanaugh investigation, and the attempts to blame the Coronavirus and the big city riots on President Trump, were mere fantasies of hyper-politicized operatives, rather than the exercise of reasonable political limits within a constitutional democracy.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Democrats’ Plot to Abolish Election Night . By Betsy McCaughey

Posted By on September 9th, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/09/09/democrats_plot_to_abolish_election_night_144154.html

The left and its media allies are warning Americans not to expect a winner on election night. If Donald Trump leads on Nov. 3, the victory will be nothing more than a “red mirage,” says Josh Mendelsohn, whose firm consults for the Democratic National Committee. In the days or weeks afterward, a Trump victory will be beaten back and undone as mail-in ballots tip the election for Joe Biden, predicts New York Times columnist David Brooks. “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances,” warns Hillary Clinton.

Don’t swallow this propaganda that election night victories are a thing of the past because of mail-in voting. Election night is a hallmark of American democracy. The public should be demanding the easy reforms that would protect it.

The 2020 election is likely to come down to a few battleground states, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota. Unless these states reform their election laws now, on election night, they will be swamped with uncounted mail-in votes. States need to require that mail-in ballots are received well in advance of Election Day and counted as they come in.

Otherwise, the uncertainty will drag on, the voters lose their power, and the outcome will be decided in courtrooms and backrooms.

Or even in the House of Representatives. All states must allocate their Electoral College votes by Dec. 14. If even one swing state is still dithering, then it’s possible neither Trump nor Biden would have 270 electoral votes. Then, the decision would be thrown to the House of Representatives. An Electoral College deadlock hasn’t happened since 1876, but foolish state laws regarding mail-in ballots could produce one this year.