WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Pompeo Champions the Faithful He wants to make religious freedom the centerpiece of U.S. human-rights policy.By Walter Russell Mead

Posted By on December 24th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pompeo-champions-the-faithful-11577144946?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Christmas is anything but a season of peace and joy for millions of Christians around the world today. Not since the death of Stalin have Christians in so many places faced the levels of discrimination, violence, imprisonment and even death on account of their religion that they do today.

After more than a century of intermittent genocide, persecution and forced removals, ancient Christian populations in much of the Middle East are on the edge of extinction. Iraq’s Christian population, estimated at 1.4 million as recently as 2003, fell by almost 90% in the chaos that followed the American invasion. Roughly three quarters of Syria’s Christian population, estimated at two million before the current civil war, are refugees. Once a substantial percentage of the Arab Palestinian population, Christians are rapidly disappearing from the Palestinian territories. Egypt still retains a large Christian population, but Copts face pervasive discrimination and, especially in rural areas, violence.

Persecution hangs over beleaguered Christian communities in much of the world. Christians in sub-Saharan Africa face violence from Boko Haram fighters. In Pakistan no Christian is safe from false charges of blasphemy. Hindu mobs in India have attacked churches. In Indonesia, radical Islamists attempt to disrupt the traditionally peaceful relationships among the country’s religious groups.

The most alarming developments are taking place in China. As authorities in Beijing work to enforce ideological conformity and restrict debate among China’s 1.4 billion people, the Christian population is experiencing heightened scrutiny and pressure. Crosses have been pulled down from church roofs, and churches have been bulldozed. More ominously, the biometric monitoring and close surveillance that has been used to crush Tibetan Buddhists and the Muslims of Xinjiang has been systematically introduced into Christian churches across the country.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Woke Harry Potter Fans Defenestrate J.K. Rowling Over Trans-Critical Tweets The same people who spent days generating a Harry Potter reference for their protest signs have called for J.K. Rowling’s literary exile, labeling the author a ‘cruel,’ ‘transphobic’ ‘bigot.’By Kristin Tate

Posted By on December 24th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/24/woke-harry-potter-fans-defenestrate-j-k-rowling-over-trans-critical-tweets/

J.K. Rowling ✔ @jk_rowling
Dress however you please.Call yourself whatever you like.Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill

J.K. Rowling has been overtaken by dementors of her own making. After committing the grave sin of defending a woman who stated that transgender women are biologically male, the British author is being dragged on Twitter and beyond by many of those who, prior to last week, were her greatest admirers. Rowling’s dramatic fall from grace is a sign that her semi-divine status has been a colossus with feet of clay all along.

Since its debut in 1997, Harry Potter has been the best-selling book series in history, encompassing about a half a billion tomes. The first book alone sold more than 120 million copies—or quadruple that of a true political masterpiece, “1984.” Rowling went from almost homeless to a billionaire practically overnight.

Of course, the original texts that spawned a film and media franchise weren’t meant to be a blueprint for political change, but for far too many young people that’s exactly what happened.

For all of its fanciful settings and adventures, Harry Potter attracted both kids and one of the most toxic fan bases known to humankind. The mythos of Pottermania even inspired almost spiritual fervor.

In the absence of true religion, people tend to fill that part of their psyche with something else, even unintentionally. This isn’t a tract on the early 2000s wave among some Christian leaders who believed Harry Potter’s magic was somehow a pact with the devil. Instead, many in the sub-30 generation made a god in their own image: one suppressive to outside thought and that papers hard questions over with a Latin-sounding spell.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Voters Love the Trump Economy By Matthew Continetti

Posted By on December 24th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/voters-love-the-trump-economy/

President Trump divides Americans, but the Trump economy unites them. The latest issue of the AEI Political Report, edited by my colleagues Karlyn Bowman and Eleanor O’Neil, is chockablock with positive assessments of the economic scene. More Americans (38 percent) say their personal financial situation is improving than getting worse (20 percent). A two-thirds majority says now is a good time to find a quality job, slightly down from the record 71 percent who said so last May. A similar majority says it’s “not very worried” about losing one’s job.

  

Seventy-one percent of registered voters say the economy is either “very” or “somewhat” strong. Seventy-three percent say it’s either “excellent” or “good.” And a 72-percent majority says the economy either will “get better” or “stay about the same” in the coming year. As Bowman and O’Neil point out, “Americans are almost always more optimistic about their personal lives than they are about the country.” Current economic conditions give Americans plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Along with President Trump.

HISTORY Comments turned off

Recalling the Battle of the Bulge By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on December 24th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/recalling-the-battle-of-the-bulge/

Seventy-five years ago, at the Battle of the Bulge (fought from Dec. 16, 1944, to Jan. 25, 1945), the United States suffered more casualties than in any other battle in its history. Some 19,000 Americans were killed, 47,500 wounded and 23,000 reported missing.

The American and British armies were completely surprised by a last-gasp German offensive, given that Allied forces were near the Rhine River and ready to cross into Germany to finish off a crippled Third Reich.

The Americans had been exhausted by a rapid 300-mile summer advance to free much of France and Belgium. In their complacence, they oddly did not worry much about their thinning lines, often green replacement troops or the still-formidable Germany army. After all, Nazi Germany was being battered on all sides by Americans, British, Canadians and Russians. Its cities were in ruins from heavy bombers.

Yet the losing side is often the most dangerous just before its collapse.

In retreat, the Germans were shortening their interior lines. They had the element of surprise, given confident allies who assumed the war would soon be over.

The cold December weather would ground the overwhelming number of Allied fighters and bombers. The Germans aimed their assault through the snowy roads of the Ardennes Mountains to bowl over inexperienced or exhausted U.S. divisions.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

German Parliament: Its Resolution to Ban Hezbollah is Just a Legal Charade by Soeren Kern

Posted By on December 23rd, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15324/german-parliament-hezbollah

Germany, however, has refused to ban Hezbollah’s “political wing,” which continues to raise funds in the country. A German foreign ministry official, Niels Annen, has said that such a ban would be counterproductive because “we focus on dialogue.” His comment has been understood to mean that the German government does not want to burn bridges with Hezbollah’s sponsor, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…. Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, is in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.” — Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem.

Germany’s Social Democratic Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, however, has refused to ban Hezbollah in its entirety. He recently repeated the German government’s distinction between Hezbollah’s legitimate and illegitimate activities in Germany.

“It remains to be seen to what extent the German federal government will…actually ‘exhaust all the resources of the rule of law’ to stop Hezbollah’s money laundering and terrorist financing in Germany.” — Bild, December 19, 2019.

The German parliament has passed a non-binding resolution that calls on the German government to ban the activities of the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah — Arabic for “The Party of Allah” — in Germany.

The measure — supported by center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats, the two major parties that make up Germany’s ruling coalition, and also by the classical liberal Free Democrats — has been hailed as “important,” “significant,” and a “crucial step.”

The resolution, however, falls short of a complete ban on Hezbollah and appears aimed at providing the German government with political cover that would allow Germany to claim that it has banned the group even if it has not.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Stop ‘Fantastical Fiction,’ Free Osman Kavala! by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on December 23rd, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15301/turkey-osman-kavala

To no one’s surprise, on December 10, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) called for the immediate release of Kavala, saying there was a lack of reasonable suspicion that he had committed an offense,

According to its official statement, the [EU] court found that Kavala’s detention “pursued an ulterior purpose…namely that of reducing [him] to silence,” ruling that the charges he faced and the detention “were likely to have a dissuasive effect on the work of human-rights defenders.”

Although the indictment does not give any evidence of Kavala’s involvement in any violent protest, it claims Kavala’s phone conversations with ordinary people — academics and NGO people — are evidence of “terrorist activity.”

Even if Kavala is released shortly, as the Constitution dictates he should be, he will have spent nearly 800 days in jail for no crime, and, from the moment he is released, will have to carry on with his legal struggles against a state with no tolerance for dissent.

Businessman-turned-philanthropist Osman Kavala has been promoting arts, culture and history since he started to devote his time to civil society in the early 1990s. His understanding of promoting culture was to promote cultural diversity and pluralism. His resumé says, “he dedicated his life to building a civil and just society.” His Anatolian Cultural Foundation seeks to bridge ethnic divides through art, including with neighboring Armenia with which Turkey has no diplomatic relations.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“Interest Rates, Debt and Demographics” Sydney M. Williams

Posted By on December 23rd, 2019

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Sound investment advice (which I have too often ignored) suggests that one should pay attention to outliers – valuations that are out of the ordinary, either too high or too low, like the extraordinary low level of interest rates today. Good investors (which I am not) find them in stocks, commodities, bonds, real estate, etc., and either purchase or sell the attractive or offending instrument. It strikes me that debt, driven by unusually low interest rates (or, at least, low by post-War measurements) has risen as a percentage of GDP to risky levels. When unfunded pension and health liabilities are included, and when one considers demographics, the picture darkens.

Examples of our unusual situation abound. In the U.S., federal debt as a percent of GDP has exceeded 100% for eight years. By the end of World War II federal debt – understandably – reached 118% of GDP. Subsequently, it declined as a percentage for thirty-five years – during a time that included the Cold War, the construction of the interstate highway system, the birth of the Great Society and the landing of a man on the moon. It reached a nadir in 1981 at 31% of GDP. Since, that ratio has risen.

I would be remiss in not pointing out that Japan and Singapore have government debt as a percentage of their GDP that exceeds ours, along with far worse demographic trends, so perhaps we should not be worried. But I am. Federal debt is $22 trillion. State and local debt are $2 trillion. Unfunded pension and health liabilities are estimated at $46 trillion. (Forbes puts the number at over $200 trillion). Mandatory spending, which includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, student assistance, veterans care and supplemental nutritional assistance programs, accounted for 72% of the 2017 budget. Such “transfer payments” are immune from budget cuts. In 1962, the comparable number for transfer spending was 28%. The effect on investments, in education, highways, R&D, etc., has been substantial – from 35% of the 1965 budget to 13% today. Complaints about roads, bridges and tunnels are understandable. Given trends, conditions are likely to worsen, not get better.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Fact Check: Lack of Assimilation Is Economically Harming Latino Immigrants And Society James D. Agresti

Posted By on December 23rd, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/12/23/fact-check-lack-of-assimilation-is-economically-harming-latino-immigrants-and-society/

Early in 2019, a firestorm of criticism descended upon veteran journalist Tom Brokaw because he said on NBC’s Meet the Press that Hispanics “should work harder at assimilation” and shouldn’t isolate themselves “in their communities.” NBC condemned his comments as “inaccurate and inappropriate,” media outlets ran articles and editorials calling them racist and factually wrong, and Brokaw apologized.

Contrary to the blowback against Brokaw, scholarly sources show that modern Latino immigrants are not assimilating like previous generations of immigrants. Furthermore, this is having negative economic impacts on them and the nation at large. These facts have nothing to do with race and everything to do with factors that can foster or impede economic prosperity.

Rejecting the Melting Pot

While berating Brokaw for his remarks, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists claimed: “To assert that the U.S. is not the melting pot that the country prides itself on being, is disinformation as the U.S. has always had immigrants and a mixture of races, religious beliefs and languages in its history.”

That statement is demonstrably untrue, as the popular culture and academia are now rife with people who reject the idea of the U.S. as a melting pot. Instead, they insist that the U.S. is and should be a “salad bowl” in which people mix but remain culturally distinct. The editors of the academic serial work American Immigration: An Encyclopedia of Political, Social, and Cultural Change explain that this trend is a substantial departure from the past:

As a nation of immigrants and their descendants, the United States has been described over the centuries as a “melting pot” of cultures. Today, most immigration scholars and activists eschew that term, contending that it implies a loss of native culture and an assimilation process that turns peoples of diverse backgrounds into a single, culturally homogenized populace.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Era of ‘Good’ Fascism? Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on December 23rd, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/22/the-era-of-good-fascism/

If and when fascism comes to America, it will not arrive with jackboots, stiff arms, and military uniforms. To modern progressives, laws are fluid, to be enforced when they champion the “good,” to be ignored or subverted when they empower the “bad.”

Consider the recent statements and acts of iconic progressive celebrities.

Jane Fonda is chronically furious. This time she directed her wrath at those who disagree about the urgency of ending the entire fossil fuel industry and ruining the current economy. Her idea is to put climate “deniers” on trial for incorrect speech. So much for the First Amendment. “Now, because of the fossil fuel industry, it’s too late for moderation,” Fonda says. “And given the emergency, it’s those who believe in moderation, in pre-Trump business as usual, who are truly delusional. And those who lie and continue to lie about what they’re doing to the environment should be put on trial.”

Green teenage heartthrob Greta Thunberg has a different solution for those who disagree with her orthodox view on “climate change”: “World leaders are still trying to run away from their responsibilities, but we have to make sure they cannot do that. We will make sure that we put them against the wall, and they will have to do their job to protect our futures.”

If Thunberg is truly worried about past government decisions that have threatened the world, she might study Swedish history and ask why her forefathers sold iron ore to the Nazi war machine—without which it could not have waged the war it did—and often threw in Swedish transport in the bargain.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Pakistan Sentences Fulbright Scholar to Death for “Blasphemy” Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on December 23rd, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/12/pakistan-sentences-fulbright-scholar-death-daniel-greenfield/

“The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.”

That’s what that looks like.

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Saturday sentenced a liberal scholar and former university lecturer to death on blasphemy charges.

In Pakistan, anti-terrorism courts terrorize.

In 2013, Junaid Hafeez was accused by students at the university where he taught of making blasphemous Facebook posts. Insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammad carries a mandatory death penalty in Pakistan, which is about 95% Muslim.

His lawyers say he was framed by students from an extremist Islamist party for his liberal and secular views and this month a U.S. religious freedom commission placed Hafeez on its list of global victims.

“He (Junaid Hafeez) shall be hanged by neck till his death subject to its confirmation by the honorable high court,” a court order stated.

Hafeez, who quit his studies at Pakistan’s top medical college to pursue a passion for art and literature, secured a Fulbright scholarship and attended Jackson State University where he majored in American literature, photography and theater.