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The Education of a Cynic By Brian Stewart

Posted By on October 6th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/book-review-the-education-of-an-idealist-samantha-power/

Samantha Power’s new memoir unwittingly crystalizes the weakness and amorality of Obama’s foreign policy.

In The Education of an Idealist, a new memoir of her government service, former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power relates a breathtaking moment from the White House Situation Room in 2013. In the course of a meeting on the mounting humanitarian and strategic crisis in Syria, President Obama, brushing aside Power’s arguments in favor of more assertive action against the Assad regime, grumbled, “We’ve all read your book, Samantha.”

The president was referring to A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, in which Ms. Power, then the executive director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights, detailed America’s long, deplorable record of inaction in the face of ethnic cleansing and genocidal war.

A Problem from Hell opens with the lethal persecution of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, in whose behalf the U.S. ambassador in Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, issued urgent but unavailing dispatches to Washington reporting the outbreak of “race murder.” Power fleshed out her survey of modern genocide (a term, she reminds us, coined by the scholar Raphael Lemkin) by turning to the Holocaust, Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds, Rwanda in 1994, and the Balkans for much of the Nineties. Power’s personal journey into this ghastly subject began as a freelance reporter in Sarajevo, where she witnessed what Slobodan Milosevic’s project of “Greater Serbia” meant for ethnic minorities in the former Yugoslavia.

With the partial exception of Bosnia and later Kosovo, where the United States led belated rescue operations under NATO auspices, these campaigns of systematic slaughter were greeted by fatal indifference by the outside world and permitted to take their hideous course. In A Problem from Hell, Power condemned generations of American policymakers for their declared realism—more precisely, to borrow a concept from Christian philosophy, their amoral quietism—in the midst of systematic persecutions and massacres of minorities.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

If the House Won’t Vote, Impeachment Inquiry Is Just a Democratic Stunt By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on October 6th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/impeachment-inquiry-house-must-vote-or-its-just-democratic-stunt/

It is not for the Speaker and her adjutants to decree that there is an inquiry.

‘The House of Representatives . . . shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”

It’s right there in black-and-white: In article I, section 2, clause 5, our Constitution vests the entirety of the power to call for removal of the president of the United States in a single body — the House.

Not in the Speaker of the House. In the House of Representatives. The institution, not one of its members.

To be sure, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a very powerful government official: second in the line of succession to the presidency; arguably, the most powerful member of Congress. She wields decisive influence on the business of her chamber. She even has the power to induce the House to vote on whether to conduct an impeachment inquiry.

But she does not have the power to impeach on her own.

In the end, Speaker Pelosi is just one member, a representative elected biannually by one district (in her case, the 12th district of California, centered in San Francisco and not particularly representative of the nation at large). Sure, she enjoys primus inter pares status because she is chosen by a majority of the House’s 435 members. But like each of those other members, her vote counts as just one — in a body that generally requires 218 votes to get the important things done.

She is the Speaker. She is not the House. She does not have the authority to call for the president’s removal. She can argue for it, like the other members. She can vote on it, like the other members. But she cannot do it by herself. Only the House, acting as an institution, can do that.

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AOC Says Trump’s Attacks on Schiff Are ‘Targeted’ Anti-Semitism By Stephen Kruiser

Posted By on October 6th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/off-her-meds-aoc-says-trumps-attacks-on-schiff-are-targeted-anti-semitism/

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) probably says and tweets more remarkably ignorant things than anyone in Congress — perhaps more than anyone in the United States. Her latest attack on President Trump regarding his attacks on California Democrat Adam Schiff may be her dumbest hot-take yet.

Yes, the Democrats work from an identity politics-based playbook all of the time, but this is a stretch even when applying their ever-changing rules.

The post she’s tweeting here as a source for her charge is from The Intercept, and was written by Mehdi Hasan, a noted Iran and Ilhan Omar apologist.

Speaking of Omar, the most outrageously laughable aspect of this concern-trolling by AOC is the fact that half of her “Squad” are openly raging anti-Semites. Omar is so awful that she inspired a condemnation resolution by her own party after she had been in office only a month.

This is Barack Obama’s legacy. White males who are Catholic, Protestant, or atheist are the only people subject to public criticism. Democrats hide their lunacy behind identity shields.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anti-Trump Whistleblower Concealed Contacts With House Democrats From Inspector General by Sean Davis

Posted By on October 6th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/04/report-anti-trump-whistleblower-concealed-contacts-with-house-democrats-from-inspector-general/

The anti-Trump whistleblower whose allegations against President Donald Trump sent Congress into an impeachment frenzy concealed his interactions with House Democrats from the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) and failed to disclose them as required, Fox News reported on Friday.

According to Fox News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, ICIG Michael Atkinson testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) that the anti-Trump complainant, whose identity has not been made public, did not inform the ICIG in his complaint that he or his team had already contacted Democratic staff working for Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House intelligence committee.

The complainant’s failure to disclose his interactions with Schiff or his staff could put him in legal hot water, as the whistleblower form he submitted requires individuals to disclose “other actions you are taking on your disclosure” under penalty of perjury. An entire page of the whistleblower form is dedicated to collecting information about previous disclosures so the ICIG can take appropriate action in response to the complaint.

“I have previously disclosed (or am disclosing) the violations alleged here to (complete all that apply),” the form requires the complainant to attest. The form includes checkboxes for disclosures to other inspectors general, other agencies, the Department of Justice, the Government Accountability Office, the Office of Special Counsel, other executive branch departments, Congress and its respective committees, and media. It also includes a separate question asking the complainant to detail those previous disclosures to the ICIG.

“Before going to Congress, the C.I.A. officer had a colleague convey his accusations to the agency’s top lawyer,” The New York Times reported earlier this week. “Concerned about how that avenue for airing his allegations was unfolding, the officer then approached a House Intelligence Committee aide, alerting him to the accusation against Mr. Trump.”

The New York Times noted that the anti-Trump complainant only notified the committee’s Democrats of his allegations.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

CHARLOTTE’S NEWS WEB

Posted By on October 5th, 2019

‘For Democrats, this is not a profile in courage but a profile in idiocy.’

https://spectator.org/impeachment-through-swamp-covered-glasses/

Impeachment Through Swamp-Covered Glasses
Daniel J. Flynn, Spectator.org

www.breitbart.com/economy/2019/10/04/unemployment-for-african-american-men-falls-to-near-1973-low/

Unemployment for African American Men Falls to Lowest Since 1973
John Carney, Breitbart.com

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Ergodan Has Badly Overplayed His Hand in the Khashoggi Affair by Con Coughlin

Posted By on October 5th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14956/turkey-ergodan-has-badly-overplayed-his-hand-in

Mr Erdogan, who has been the main driving force behind efforts to cause the Saudis maximum discomfort, now has an abundance of problems of his own, challenges which could spell the end of his 16-years in charge. After Mr Erdogan’s Islamist AKP party lost badly in last April’s mayoral election for control of Istanbul, the Turkish leader now finds himself trying desperately to salvage Turkey’s battered economy, where the currency is in free fall, foreign debts remain vast, and inflation and joblessness are alarmingly high.

Many Turks blame their country’s plight on Mr Erdogan’s obsession with pursuing his radical Islamist agenda, which includes supporting groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Many prefer him to concentrate instead on addressing their domestic concerns, a view the Turkish president would be well-advised to take on board if he intends to remain in power.

A year after the brutal murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, attempts by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to exploit the controversy to boost his own political standing have back-fired.

Ever since Mr Khashoggi was murdered moments after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in October last year to obtain documentation for his forthcoming marriage, Mr Erdogan has skilfully exploited the incident to cause maximum embarrassment to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom he regards as one of his major regional rivals.

Ankara has been at loggerheads with Riyadh ever since the Muslim Brotherhood, a key ally of Mr Erdogan, came to power in Egypt in 2012, a move bitterly resisted by the Saudis, who regard the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Israel, Alone among Nations, Stirs Artists to Silence Other Artists Howard Jacobson

Posted By on October 5th, 2019

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2019/10/israel-alone-among-nations-s

Last month, the German city of Dortmund decided to rescind the Nelly Sachs Prize—named for a Jewish poet and dramatist who received a Nobel prize in 1966—which it had recently awarded to the Anglo-Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie. The judges reconsidered because of Shamsie’s vocal and longstanding support for the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS). The decision provoked fulmination from Shamsie and a letter signed by 250 indignant writers and published at the London Review of Books website. Howard Jacobson comments:

A cultural boycott, however, imposed by teachers on teachers, thinkers on thinkers, writers on writers, is a monstrous absurdity. The absurdity is self-evident when Shamsie explains her refusal to allow her work to be translated into Hebrew because she is unable to find an Israeli publisher “who is completely unentangled from the state”—who acts, in other words, not by the lights of its own “freedom of conscience and expression,” but by hers. . . .

To the familiar self-righteousness of boycotters, Shamsie adds the overweening vanity of the wounded novelist. A writer has to estimate herself highly indeed to consider the withholding of her words a sanction. Should I turn out to be wrong on this, and not being able to read Shamsie indeed brings the Israeli administration to its knees and opens the gates to a peaceful, flourishing Gaza, I will be the first to apologize. But if books can have this effect in their absence, only imagine what their effect might be if they are read. . . .

To the 250 signatories to the letter, though, I say this: Israel in the eyes of many of you is an anathema, and has been an anathema since the moment of its creation. But might not you, before seizing the pretext of a literary prize to express this view yet again, have paused to consider the nature of that prize, the person after whom it’s named, and the poetry she wrote? One of Nelly Sachs’s most renowned poems is O die Schornsteine—Oh, the chimneys—which begins:

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GOP Rep: Volker Testimony ‘Blows Massive Hole’ in Dems’ Ukraine-Gate Allegations Deborah Heine

Posted By on October 5th, 2019

amgreatness.com/2019/10/03/gop-volker-testimony-blows-massive-hole-in-dems-ukraine-gate-allegations/

A House Democrat-led closed door interview with former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker Thursday did not go as well as Democrats had hoped, according to reports.

Volker appeared before the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs committees to testify on a deep state “whistleblower’s” allegation that President Trump tried to pressure Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

According to Rep Lee Zeldin (R.-N.Y.), Volker’s testimony was “blowing a massive hole in that allegation.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R.-Ohio), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, also told reporters that Volker did not tell House members anything that supports the Democrats’ premise for their impeachment investigation against the president.

“Not one thing he has said comports with any of the Democrats’ impeachment narrative,” Rep. Jordan told reporters during a break in the questioning, Thursday afternoon.

Democrats had high hopes that Volker’s testimony would be “damaging to the President and his allies.”

At one point during the deposition, however, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.)had to take over questioning from his own side’s counsel because it wasn’t going well, according to Republican sources.

Volker resigned from his position as the special envoy on September 27, after being mentioned in the whistleblower complaint alleging wrongdoing by Trump in a July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president.  The president had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyto to look into corruption allegations surrounding Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 Russia hoax and also Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden’s allegedly corrupt dealings in the country.

Jordan blasted what he called “the process Mr. Schiff has set up” to interview witnesses in the impeachment probe. Schiff initially was going to try to limit GOP members from asking questions, Jordan complained to reporters during the break.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Dysfunctional Education: Angelo Codevilla

Posted By on October 5th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/04/dysfunctional-education/

The only way for Americans to avoid being pulled down in a vortex of the self-indulgent ignorance that characterizes our education establishment is to cut loose from that establishment: to stop funding it, and to create another, honest one.

The 2020 elections will afford us the chance to pass judgment on the immediate threat to our democracy posed by the intelligence agencies, the Democratic party, and the media in their grab for power through a bastardized impeachment process. But no such opportunity exists for us to deal with the most serious, most fundamental threat to our way of life, namely our thoroughly rotten educational establishment.

The problem has been festering for decades, and keeps getting worse.

During Word War II, only 4 percent of some 18 million draftees were illiterate. Despite (or because?) of massive expenditures on education over the subsequent two decades, 27 percent of the Vietnam war’s draftees were judged functionally illiterate. Between 1955 and 1991, the inflation-adjusted average K-12 per-pupil expenditure in America rose 350 percent. In 1972, 2,817 students scored 750 or better on each half of the SAT. By 1994, only 1,438 made this score though the test had been made easier. Today, U.S. 15 year olds rank 24th out of 71 countries in science, and 38th in math. In 2018, college students spent less than a third of the time their grandparents did studying for their classes.

But as the bell-curve of intellectual achievement continues to shift leftward, the bell curve of school grades continues to shift rightward. Increasingly, the default grade in America is “A.” Among all classes and races, some seventy percent of U.S students report having cheated on exams or papers.  No one should be surprised at the American people’s increasing incompetence and inability to follow directions—never mind arguments.

This past week, the noise from Washington drowned out three items of news that remind us of how corrupt and dumbed down American education has become, how far into society the rot has spread and how much it would take to remedy it.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Sigh of Jobs Relief Workers continue to gain, despite damage from trade policy.

Posted By on October 5th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-sigh-of-jobs-relief-11570228132

Imagine how well the U.S. economy would be doing with better trade policy. That’s our reaction to Friday’s jobs report for September that showed remarkable resilience despite the headwinds of tariffs, declining business investment and a manufacturing downturn.

The economy created 136,000 new jobs in the month, plus 45,000 more in upward revisions for July and August. That adds up to a monthly average so far this year of 161,000, which is healthy for an expansion that is now into its tenth year though it’s below the 223,000 average in 2018.

Even more surprising, the jobless rate fell to 3.5%, the lowest in half a century. The number of employed Americans surged by 391,000, which drove the overall employment ratio up to 61%, the highest since December 2008. The rising employment ratio shows that Americans who have been on the sidelines since the Great Recession are continuing to stream into the labor market long after economists on Wall Street and at the Federal Reserve concluded the U.S. was at full employment.

The new job seekers include in particular those who are often the hardest to employ. The jobless rate for those without a high-school degree fell by 0.6 percentage point to 4.8%, the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking this in 1992. The rate for Hispanic Americans fell 0.3 percentage point to 3.9%.