The Dystopian Democrats’ Authoritarian Town Hall — by Thomas McArdle

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/06/the-dystopian-democrats-authoritarian-town-hall/

Who would imagine that the Democrats’ hurtling to the far left would actually lead to an attack on one of their sacred precepts: “a woman’s right to choose.”

The right to choose not to have a baby is fine, reducing as it does your carbon footprint, and thus saving the earth. But choosing to have too many babies (on top of being so bourgeois and unseemly) is like selfishly choosing to burn oil instead of harnessing your energy from the sun or wind.

Get it straight: carbon is immoral, whether the polluting carbon you’re expelling into the atmosphere is fossil fuels or children.

At CNN’s “Climate Crisis Town Hall” on Wednesday, working class champion Sen. Bernie Sanders was asked a population control question by a longtime elementary teacher at a Montessori school where the tuition ranges from $11,000 to $27,000, in 96% white, $66,500 median family income Litchfield County in rural western Connecticut, the state’s most sparsely populated county.

“The planet cannot sustain this growth” in population, she contended. “Empowering women and educating everyone on the need to curb population growth seems a reasonable campaign to enact. Would you be courageous enough to discuss this issue and make it a key feature of a plan to address climate catastrophe?” she asked. Sanders responded in the positive and expressed a willingness to give U.S. “aid to those organizations around the world that allow women to have abortions” and provide contraception.

Death of a Dictator Admired on the left, Robert Mugabe led a thriving country to ruin.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/death-of-a-dictator-11567796547

Africa’s postcolonial era produced many tyrants, but few as destructive as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. The perverse accomplishment of the dictator, who died Friday at age 95, was to make a thriving country impoverished, corrupt and oppressed.

Mugabe was born in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia and studied in South Africa. He became an enthusiastic Marxist and joined his country’s independence movement in the 1960s. The former schoolteacher turned into a guerrilla commander and served more than a decade in prison. After Zimbabwe became an independent state, he was elected Prime Minister in 1980.

Widely reviled at the end of his life for his many abuses of power, he was feted across the globe earlier in his career by politicians and intellectuals who should have known better. He became a champion of anticolonialism on the left and was even knighted by Britain in 1994. By then the military he controlled had killed thousands of political opponents and civilians.

Obamas try to muscle little company into handing over its trademark to them By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/obamas_try_to_muscle_little_company_into_handing_over_their_trademark_to_them.html

The Obamas have always been big on Chicago-style political muscle, and even in the post-presidency, Barack and Michelle have not changed a bit.

Get a load of this outrageous bid to force a little company to give up its trademark — to him.  According to Fox News:

The legal team representing the Obamas filed a petition to cancel the trademark of an e-book publishing company called Higher Ground Enterprises, much to the chagrin of the publishing company.

“This is really deplorable behavior. I hope that the Obamas realize that these actions are not consistent with the values they preach and that they instruct their attorneys to immediately dismiss the petition,” attorney Larry Zerner told Fox News in a statement that was first given to The Hollywood Reporter.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Obama team wanted to name their Netflix propaganda venture ‘Higher Ground Productions’ which is kind of a stupid, banal name, but whatevs.  The U.S. trademark office told them “no” because another company, Higher Ground Enterprises, already had the name, and the names were too similar.

CHARLOTTE’S NEWS WEB

Hispanic Unemployment Rate Ties All-Time Low Craig Bannister

www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/09/liberals-in-pittsburgh-announce-boycott-of-local-businesses-for-trump-support-backlash-ensues/

Liberals In Pittsburgh Announce Boycott Of Local Businesses For Trump Support, Backlash Ensues Jim Hoft, 

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/05/climate-change-hysteria-dangerous/

CNN’s Presidential Climate Change Town Hall Was Insane, And the hysteria is getting dangerous.

David Harsanyi

Put it this way: the most benign climate-change plan proposed during CNN’s seven-hour Democratic Party presidential candidate town hall was more authoritarian than anything Donald Trump has ever suggested during his presidency. 

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/09/05/american-airlines-mechanic-charged-with-sabotaging-an-aircraft.html

American Airlines mechanic charged with sabotaging a plane

Leslie Josephs

CAIR Research Director Previously Praised NGO With Jihadist Ties The fact that Abbas Barzegar conducts research for CAIR while praising those who materially support jihadists is a troubling phenomenon, but points to a larger problem within the field of NGOs. By Erielle Davidson

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/06/research-director-of-cair-previously-praised-ngo-with-jihadist-ties/

The research director for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Abbas Barzegar, has a history of publicly supporting a Turkish nonprofit organization that “has provided financial, logistical and political support for jihadists,” according to The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

What makes Barzegar’s praise of Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) particularly noteworthy is that he is the head author of CAIR’s 2019 report on Islamophobia, titled “Hijacked by Hate: American Philanthropy and the Islamophobia Network.” In other words, he has been accusing U.S. nonprofits of Islamophobia while publicly endorsing a group that, according to the former chief of counter-terrorism in Turkey, has furnished material support to jihadists.

It is unclear whether Barzegar was either ignorant of IHH’s role or knew but did not care. When approached by IJT for comment, Barzegar did not respond.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post in 2015, Barzegar claimed that IHH was on the “front lines” in Syria, assisting tens of thousands of Syrian refugees heading towards Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. He even presented IHH as ideal candidates for becoming “ideological gatekeepers” within the war-torn region, arguing they were capable of performing more than simply “routine aid work.”

What If Americans Wanted Freedom As Much As Hong Kongers Do? I hope these courageous, freedom-loving protesters succeed and their message of hope catches on in other countries desperate for the Hong Kong formula.By Adam Mill

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/06/americans-wanted-freedom-much-hong-kongers/

As I watch the fearless Hong Kong protesters risk life and limb, standing up to the Chinese juggernaut to protect freedom, I can’t help but wistfully wish we’re witnessing the beginning of a spreading popular movement. In my heart of hearts, it’s my fondest hope that these courageous, freedom-loving protesters succeed and that their message of hope catches fire in other countries in desperate need of the Hong Kong formula.

I’m not referring to a spread into mainland China, which would also be wonderful. No, here I’m hoping their thirst for freedom also spreads to the United States.

I’m not saying the United States isn’t free. But it’s a whole lot less free than the special experiment of Hong Kong. For one thing, the Heritage Foundation rates Hong Kong’s as the freest economy in the world, and the United States as the world’s 12th-freest. That’s embarrassing.

Hong Kong is a miracle economy. Its unemployment rate rarely rises above 4 percent. It recovered quickly from the financial crisis in contrast to the very lethargic U.S. recovery between 2008 and 2017. Hong Kong has avoided the curse of a large entitlement system due to its free market policies. It maintains a “simple and efficient” tax rate of 15 percent, from which it drives an astonishing budget surplus, averaging 3.4 percent. Its debt is equivalent to 0.1 percent of GDP.

Leftist orthodoxy would hold that the absence of a robust social safety net would result in widespread human suffering. But the opposite is true. Hong Kong, a city of comparable size to New York City, has a tiny homeless population of approximately 1,000, as opposed to New York, where nearly one of every 121 New Yorkers is currently homeless. Hong Kong’s poverty rate of 14.7 percent is among the lowest in the world.

In spite of a comparatively hands-off regulatory environment, market efficiencies make Hong Kong’s carbon footprint per citizen less than green-obsessed Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg, to name a few examples. Indeed, its carbon footprint per citizen is only two-thirds of Norway’s (6.4 metric tons per capita versus 9.3) and less than half of Canada’s (15.2 metric tons). If the left really cared about the environment, it shouldn’t abandon the profit motive’s efficient resource management that has proven to be a more effective pollution reducer than central control.

An overblown hypothesis by James Piereson On hurricanes and climate change.

https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/an-overblown-hypothesis

We are well into hurricane season with a dangerous storm lurking off the coast of Florida and now poised to make a run up the east coast of the United States. As happens every year at this time, the appearance of hurricanes provokes speculation about the role of climate change in the formation of these destructive storms.

Climate change theorists assert that warming ocean temperatures are increasing the number and strength of hurricanes that form and make landfall in the United States. As David Leonhardt writes this week in the New York Times, “The frequency of severe hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean has roughly doubled over the last two decades, and climate change appears to be the reason.” He cites some statistics to support this conclusion, though his review of the facts is far from thorough.

As he notes, the underlying science holds that hurricanes develop in warm ocean waters in late summer, so that over time rising ocean temperatures will generate rising numbers of hurricanes, and stronger ones as well. According to scientists, average ocean temperatures have increased by about one degree Fahrenheit over the past one hundred to a hundred and fifty years, a finding that provides a foundation for the “hurricane hypothesis.” Thus, we hear the refrain that global warming is causing more storms with higher wind speeds, and that these storms last longer, are more destructive, and make landfall more often than in the past.

A Fine Mess for the Moment Sooner, rather than later, Boris Johnson will get his election—and Brexit will happen at last. Christopher Gage

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/05/a-fine-mess/

It comes to something when the one of the most serene and sensible of political voices stems from a newspaper dedicated to the violent overthrow of capitalism.

Yet, The Morning Star—Britain’s only Communist newspaper, and once reliant on bulk orders from the Soviet Union—this week offered much in the way of common-sense; a commodity vanishingly rare in modern Britain.

“The Morning Star believes that the referendum result should be respected, and Britain should leave the EU on October 31, with or without a deal,” the paper proclaimed, parroting almost verbatim the mantra of  Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a man the same newspaper routinely daubs “fascist.”

Yes, dear reader, the beacon of democratic propriety appears to be a Leninist newspaper that papered over the barbarism of the Soviet Union and still harbors fantasies of violent revolution.

The ‘Rebel Alliance’ vs. the People

Over the past week, the formerly serious country of Great Britain perhaps seared its joke status into history.

First, Remainers armed with cheese, olives, and a good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, blocked London streets in picnic fashion, without threat of harm or arrest, to protest an apparent “coup.”

Duped US Travelers to Cuba Infected by Zika Virus Outbreak A Stalinist tyranny keeps it secret. Humberto Fontova

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274826/duped-us-travelers-cuba-infected-zika-virus-humberto-fontova

“A new analysis of Zika-infected travelers who returned to the United States or Europe in 2017 or 2018 has found that 98% had visited Cuba, which did not report any cases to world health officials at the time the country’s outbreak apparently peaked.”

“It was startling,” says Kristian Andersen, a genomic epidemiologist at Scripps Research in San Diego, California, who led the work conducted by 38 researchers from five countries. The group estimates that Cuba had 5,707 unreported cases, with most occurring in 2017 (the year, by the way, when Obama’s “opening” made U.S. travel to Cuba very chic — and very important to the Stalinist regime’s coffers, especially those of the secret police and military who majority own Cuba’s tourism infrastructure).

“Of 91 travel-associated Zika cases identified in Florida from June 2017 to October 2018, the team found that all but one infected individual was returning from Cuba. …Likewise, 63 of 64 travel-associated cases caught in Europe during that time frame involved travel to Cuba. Cuba’s unrecognized [no–it was fully recognized by the Stalinist regime which kept it hush-hush!] Zika outbreak may have ‘silently’ spread the virus to other parts of the world and continues to infect international visitors today.” (Zika News)

So what’s the big deal, some might ask? Well, “Zika virus can be passed from a pregnant woman to her fetus and can cause a birth defect called microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects… Zika primarily spreads through infected mosquitoes. You can also get Zika through sex without a condom with someone infected by Zika, even if that person does not show symptoms of Zika.” (Center For Disease Controls.)

How Despots Interpret Deals with the West by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14805/despots-deals

The European Union wants the world to welcome Iran back into the international community because as far as the Europeans are concerned, it appears that the stronger Iran is, the better: a renewed Iran would further Europe’s hope of seeing Israel and the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. Heard just a few months ago were calls such as, “send Jews to the ovens,” “Hitler didn’t finish the job,” and “kill the Jews.”

The Trump administration has created the impression in the Arab and Muslim world that it is ready to beg the leaders of Iran to engage in direct negotiations with Washington. This approach is exceptionally harmful to US interests: it sends a message to many Arabs and Muslims that Americans are prepared to surrender again and humiliate themselves for the sake of any kind of deal with the Iranians. As Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said last month, America should “bow down” to Iran. Seems it is.

Advice to the Trump administration is: Stay strong. As Osama bin Laden correctly observed, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.”

Strength and more strength is the only way to earn the respect of those running the show in Beijing, Kabul, Moscow, Pyongyang, and especially in Tehran, Gaza and Beirut.

The European Union says it will support talks between the US and Iran, but only if the current nuclear deal with Tehran is preserved.

The idea of direct talks between the US and Iran seems to have developed after President Donald Trump recently said he was ready to meet Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani.

“We are always in favor of talks, the more people talk, the more people understand each other better, on the basis of clarity and on the basis of respect,” EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said last month.

The EU wants the world to welcome Iran back into the international community because — this might sound harsh, but it is increasingly hard not to believe it — they are hoping that the leaders of Tehran will focus their efforts on achieving their goal of annihilating Israel. As far as the Europeans are concerned, it appears that the stronger Iran is, the better: a renewed Iran would further Europe’s hope of seeing Israel and the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. Heard just a few months ago were calls such as, “send Jews to the ovens,” “Hitler didn’t finish the job,” and “kill the Jews.”