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DEFUND THE THOUGHT POLICE: CHARLES LIPSON

Posted By on June 25th, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/24/defund_the_thought_police__143523.html

Due process is not the strong suit of mobs. Neither is nuance, open discussion, or disagreement. These inherent defects should be painfully obvious as mobs pull down statues, seize sections of cities, and demand the public approach them on bended knee, literally. Anyone who dares push back, perhaps with a mild tweet saying “All lives matter,” faces immediate censure. If the mob is successful, any offenders will lose their jobs. Feckless employers are all too eager to appease the mob and hope it turns on another target.

In this perilous environment, the most frenzied voices do more than dominate the public square. They monopolize it by silencing dissent. They have received full-throated support from the tech giants that control electronic discussion and the media giants determined to shape the narrative rather than report the news. Twitter and NBC are the poster children for this assault on free and open discussion. Their suppression in the name of “social justice” betrays the idea, best articulated in John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” that competing, divergent views lead to greater understanding and better decisions.

The idea of an open forum, so basic to democracies, already lies a-moldering in the grave of academia, at least in the humanities and social sciences. Imagine applying for a job in Gender Studies and saying you oppose abortions after, say, Week 38. The term for such a person is “unemployed.” Imagine merely calling for a discussion on the pros and cons of affirmative action, taking the negative side, and hoping to win tenure in political science, sociology, anthropology, or history. Bad career move. There is more robust political debate at the Academy Awards.

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Federal Appeals Court Orders Judge Sullivan to Dismiss the Flynn Case By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on June 25th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/federal-appeals-court-orders-judge-sullivan-to-dismiss-the-flynn-case/

A divided panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this morning ordered Judge Emmet Sullivan to grant the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the indictment against Michael Flynn, who fleetingly served as President Trump’s first national-security adviser.

In a majority ruling written by Judge Naomi Rao and joined by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, appointees of Presidents Trump and Bush 41, respectively, the court held that the executive branch has the constitutional power of prosecutorial discretion, including the authority to decide which cases to charge and whether to persist in charges once they’ve been brought. This power is in tension with Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which requires the Justice Department to seek “leave of the Court” before dismissing an indictment. While not deciding the potentially legitimate parameters of this requirement, the majority reasoned that it is for the protection of defendants from prosecutorial harassment.

Relying on the D.C. Circuit’s 2016 Fokker precedent, the court found that Rule 48(a) does not permit a thoroughgoing inquiry into the executive branch’s reasoning for dismissal — at least in a case in which the accused joins the prosecution in seeking a dismissal with prejudice (such a dismissal stands as a final judgment and bars the government from re-charging the defendant with the same offense at a later date).

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Europe’s Statues and Limitations Churchill and Gandhi are out, Lenin is in, and Marx never went away.

Posted By on June 25th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-statues-and-limitations-11593040923?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

The U.S. isn’t alone in grappling with whom to commemorate in public monuments. Europe is having its own debates, and as in America the results are sometimes positive and just as often ridiculous.

In the positive column, there’s Belgium’s rethink of statues honoring King Leopold II, and Bristol’s removal of monuments to Edward Colston in the United Kingdom. Leopold’s personal rule of Belgian Congo was marked by brutality on an industrial scale, with mass amputations a favored means of controlling a population enslaved in service of Leopold’s rubber interests. Colston made his fortune in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The problem in both places is that the statues have been attacked by mobs rather than removed by local governments after reasoned debate. That absence of reasonable discussion also explains the other mob targets.

Those include statues of Winston Churchill, one of which in London’s Parliament Square had to be boarded up to protect it. The role of Churchill’s government in exacerbating a Bengal famine that killed several million Indians in 1943 is worth debating. But Churchill’s leadership in defeating Nazi Germany counts for more to any rational mind.

Speaking of India, Gandhi isn’t immune. A move is afoot in addled corners of the left to remove statues of the leader of India’s independence movement due to racist remarks he made about Africans.

HISTORY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

70 Years After the War, No Resolution in Korea The dynamics driving conflict remain strong. Full reconciliation is as likely as open conflict. Walter Russell Mead

Posted By on June 25th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/70-years-after-the-war-no-resolution-in-korea-11593039440?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

The Korean War began 70 years ago, on June 25, 1950, when Kim Jong Un’s grandfather sent troops across the 38th parallel into the South. Pyongyang seemed bent on commemorating that event this year by trash-talking—literally. North Korea plans to retaliate for packages sent over the border by defectors containing derogatory information about Kim Jong Un along with South Korean soap operas on memory sticks. According to Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency, “12 million leaflets of all kinds reflective of the wrath and hatred of the people from all walks of life” have been printed, and 3,000 balloons are being prepared to unleash a massive propaganda blitz against the offending South.

The master strategists of Pyongyang plan to include bundles of trash with the propaganda. “South Korea has to face the music,” the North’s news agency said. “Only when it experiences how painful and how irritating it is to dispose of leaflets and waste, it will shake off its bad habit. The time for retaliatory punishment is drawing near.”

Or maybe not. On the eve of the anniversary, North Korea announced that Mr. Kim had told officials to put the campaign on hold.

The forces behind the conflict on the Korean Peninsula are as strong as ever. The Kim dynasty is grimly determined to hang on, and its estimated stockpile of 30 to 40 nuclear warheads plus its proximity to China ensures that none of its enemies dare to attack the North. The South longs for national reunification, but the South poses an existential threat to the Kim dynasty simply by flourishing as a democracy. Of the great powers nearby, neither China nor Japan really wants Korean unification. The U.S. would like to see North and South move closer together, thus reducing the chance that American troops would be ensnared in a second Korean War. But North Korean hostility poses riddles that no U.S. president has been able to answer.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

The No Debate Democrats Forty-five Senators block a police reform from hitting the floor.

Posted By on June 25th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-no-debate-democrats-11593041122?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

A minority of the Senate, 45 Democrats to be exact, voted Wednesday to close off any debate on a police reform bill. Not against the bill, mind you. Against even allowing the Senate to debate or offer amendments to Republican Tim Scott’s proposal.

The calculation is pure election-year cynicism: Block the Senate from passing a bill that Republicans could campaign on, then denounce Republicans for refusing to pass the bill that House Democrats will pass this week that would micromanage local police departments. Blame Republicans for opposing reform when Senate Democrats were the real opponents.

Much of the press corps will play along by reporting on the House vote but treating the Senate vote as a GOP failure. The election-year calculation will go largely unmentioned as Democrats maneuver to return the Senate to Democratic Party control in 2021. It’s no accident that California Senator Kamala Harris led the filibuster as she campaigns to be Joe Biden’s running mate.

The loser here is the chance for bipartisan agreement on police reform, which shows that Democrats don’t really care about the substance of chokeholds and the rest. Their priority is using George Floyd’s unjust killing as a campaign issue to regain power.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Dump China: Time to End Beijing’s Pernicious Tech Empire by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on June 24th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16148/end-china-tech-empire

China’s window of vulnerability… is only a few years at most. So this is the time for the world to act.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology talks about the country committing $1.4 trillion in the next five years.

China also is working on plundering Google, which has various operations in the People’s Republic including its AI China Center in Beijing and partnerships with the country’s two leading universities, Peking and Tsinghua. Yet the company has larger plans.

Google, which has refused to work with the Defense Department on artificial intelligence, is helping the Chinese military in that critical field. This situation is hideous. “The United States has to absolutely prohibit Google and other tech firms from doing business in China or with Chinese firms,” according to Brandon Weichert.

China’s market is losing its attractiveness. The economy is in distress, suffering from both the coronavirus epidemic and systemic weaknesses, such as excessive indebtedness, smothering state controls, and xenophobic hostility to foreign investment…. Now is the time to shut down Beijing’s massive, state-directed, and government-funded effort to dominate the world’s technologies.

“China,” some say, “is largely a land of rule-bound rote learners.” The Chinese try but rarely make breakthroughs on their own. Moreover, ruler Xi Jinping, who demands that his regime dominate the technologies of the world, is fast eliminating the one essential ingredient of innovation: freedom. Totalitarianism promotes obedience, a quality not particularly helpful for developing the technologies of tomorrow.

Yet despite everything, Xi’s China has still managed to become a technology leader in critical fields, such as quantum communications and 5G wireless communications. The Chinese, because of their success, are now racing to own the technologies of this century.

China also has weaknesses. Its economy is failing, and the regime, through especially provocative actions, is losing the support of the international community. The country’s window of vulnerability, however, is only a few years at most. So this is the time for the world to act.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Where are the Visible and Audible Women in the Muslim Community?” by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

Posted By on June 24th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16142/visible-muslim-women

“Muslim women are hampered in their development by difficult circumstances and a theory of coercion. … I could not tolerate that women can only pray in the back of mosques and are not properly recognized. I wanted to change this traditional picture, but the IGGÖ refused to question this, even institutionalized it.” — Fatma Akay-Türker, former spokeswoman for women’s affairs of the Islamic Faith Community, who resigned.
“I believe in democracy, freedom, questioning deadlocked theological structures and the equality of human beings. In a world dominated by men I fight for the right of women to speak out, against all forms of discrimination and the sexualization of women.” — Fatma Akay-Türker.
“Relevant passages [of the Koran] regarding women must be reinterpreted. But this was not accepted among the men [in the council]. The classical interpretation of the Koran cannot solve the problems of women….” — Fatma Akay-Türker.
In the meantime, a man has filled Akay-Türker’s position.

Fatma Akay-Türker, until June 16 spokeswoman for women’s affairs of the Islamic Faith Community of Austria (IGGÖ), has stepped down with a statement:

Resignation!!

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Survivors Summit Covers Abuse, Addictions and Attitudes that Threaten our Civilization

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

media@ruthinstitute.org

Survivors Summit Covers Abuse, Addictions and Attitudes that Threaten our Civilization

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s disastrous Bostock decision, the Ruth Institute’s Summit for Survivors of the Sexual Revolution takes on extreme urgency. The Summit, to be held July 17-18, in Lake Charles, LA, will analyze the many ways the Sexual Revolution needs the power of the State to do its destructive work.

Ruth Institute President, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., stated, “The Bostock ruling redefines “female” and “male” for purposes of law. The Obergefell decision redefined marriage. The Federalist Society vetted Gorsuch, appointed by Pres. Trump, who wrote the majority opinion. This terrible ruling shows that the conservative legal establishment has no idea how to address sexual and social issues. The Sexual Revolution attacks both the individual and the family. At our Summit, we’ll take a hard look at some of the most destructive pathologies the Global Ruling Class has inflicted on ordinary people.”

Expert Presentations will include:

Surviving Childhood Sexual Abuse – The future of health and the family depends on ending it. No one will do this but people of faith! Presented by Dr. Morse and Fr. Paul Sullins, Ph.D.
Surviving Pornography, as a nation, as a family, as an individual:  Pornography as a Public Health Crisis, Melea Stephens (of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation) and Protecting Young Eyes: Tools for Parents and Other Educators, presented by Chris McKenna (of Covenant Eyes).

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Democrats Exposed as the Racists They’ve Always Been By Joan Swirsky 

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://canadafreepress.com/article/democrats-exposed-as-the-racists-theyve-always-been

A black vote of 20 percent, and quite possibly 30 percent for President Trump, will teach the Democrats that even their most cherished “value”––abortion––is not enough to keep the black population loyal to their historically empty promises and innate racism.

They say that out of every bad thing comes a good thing. Ask any mother who has been through a 20-hour labor!

The same can be said of the criminal behavior of the Marxist-inspired radicals––Antifa and Black Lives Matters––which eclipsed the legitimate outrage that followed the horrific murder of George Floyd by a white policeman, Derek Chauvin, in Minneapolis, MN.

This crime called for reform of the Minneapolis Police Department, which had ignored 18 grievances against Chauvin. But that is not what happened.

Instead, the peaceful protests against this savage act were obliterated by the professionally orchestrated, bountifully financed rampage of the above-mentioned anarchists-cum-terrorists through American cities and suburbs, leaving a massive swath of destruction that included dozens of black-owned businesses and dozens of white-owned businesses that employed black citizens. So much for Black Lives Matter!

What a beautiful tribute to George Floyd––God spare all of us such a memoriam!

POLITICS Comments turned off

Voter-shaming by the left hits a new low Ruthie Blum

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/voter-shaming-by-the-left-hits-a-new-low/

There is a huge difference between rejecting a politician and debasing his supporters.

(June 23, 2020 / JNS) During a lecture at the New York-based Modern Language Association in the immediate aftermath of U.S. President Richard Nixon’s landslide re-election in November 1972, the late American film critic, Pauline Kael, made a memorable statement.

“I live in a rather special world,” the outspoken movie reviewer acknowledged. “I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where [the rest of them] are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes, when I’m in a theater, I can feel them.”

Though the quote has been bastardized a bit over the years, its gist remains intact—and not only in the United States. What it illustrated nearly five decades ago still holds in Western societies: That no matter how widespread a stance, if it is antithetical to the sentiment and sensibilities of the so-called “intelligentsia” (and of those aspiring to the title), it is rendered invisible.

It is also seen, or at least portrayed, as frightening in some way. Kael admitted to knowing only a single Nixon voter, but said that she could sense others lurking, almost threateningly, in the rows of seats around her in darkened cinemas.

Imagine her amazement, then, when the faceless figures “outside [her] ken” turned out to be a majority of the electorate. After all, no such people ever had graced her table—unless, perhaps, they were serving the meal or cleaning up after it.