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New York Times Walks Back New Kavanaugh Sexual-Misconduct Accusation Mairead McArdle

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-york-times-walks-back-new-kavanaugh-sexual-misconduct-accusation/

The New York Times on Sunday was forced to walk back a new sexual misconduct allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, updating a bombshell article to clarify that the alleged victim has no memory of the incident.

The opinion essay by Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly details their upcoming book “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation” and describes several sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, including a previously unreported claim that the FBI did not investigate during the judge’s contentious confirmation process.

Kavanaugh’s high school classmate, Christine Blasey Ford, testified to Congress during his confirmation hearings that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and covered her mouth at a drunken house party when they were teenagers. Several other accusations surfaced against him during those weeks, including from a Yale classmate, Deborah Ramirez, who claimed that Kavanaugh had thrust his penis in her face at a drunken dormitory party, causing her to push it away and accidentally touch it.

The Times reporters detailed a previously unreported alleged incident similar to the Ramirez one. Another Yale classmate, Max Stier, who now heads a Washington nonprofit, told Congress and the FBI that he had witnessed Kavanaugh “with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.” The FBI did not investigate that allegation.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Thought of the Day – “End of Classical Liberalism?” Sydney Williams

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Anarchy, war and despotism are the natural states of man, not freedom, democracy and classical liberalism. (I use the term “classical liberalism,” which speaks to the advocacy of civil liberties under the rule of law, with an emphasis on individual economic freedom, to differentiate from today’s use of “liberalism,” which is defined as a compassionate but intrusive, all-powerful state. Thomas Sowell was more direct when he declared “liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.”

Anarchy is at one end of the spectrum, with totalitarianism at the other. In his 1927 book, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, a book in which he uses the word “liberalism” as I do “classical liberalism,” Ludwig von Mises wrote: “Liberalism is not anarchism, nor has it anything whatsoever to do with anarchism. The liberal understands quite clearly that without resort to compulsion, the existence of society would be endangered and that behind the rules of conduct whose observance is necessary to assure peaceful human cooperation must stand the threat of force if the whole edifice of society is not to be continually at the mercy of any one of its members. One must be in a position to compel the person who will not respect the lives, health, personal freedom, or private property of others to acquiesce in the rules of life in society. This is the function that the liberal doctrine assigns to the state: the protection of property, liberty, and peace.” It is to provide justice, not social justice.

Totalitarianism represents the other extreme. In harsh, dictatorial nations blemishes are obvious. But in a state where, over time, one is seduced by offerings of free services, like food stamps, help with housing, health and college, life can be comfortable. All that is asked in return is allegiance to a political party. Beware apathy, warned Baron de Montesquieu: “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.”  Like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, despots build their power bases slowly, deliberately, much like the lobster dropped into tepid water, with the heat gradually increased, so that when the water boils the lobster has already succumbed. The best antidote to tyranny is education, which is why citizens should be concerned by the attack on meritocratic public schools in big cities like New York. The slogan for Sy Syms’ one-time company was “an educated consumer is our best customer.” Classical liberalisms’ best defense is an educated citizen.

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Palestinians’ Blood Libels Against Israel, Jews by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14888/palestinians-drugs-blood-libels

Instead of acknowledging their responsibility for failing to combat the drug trafficking, the leaders of Hamas have been trying to blame everyone but themselves…. These leaders are trying hard to convince Palestinians that Israel and Hamas’s rivals in the Palestinian Fatah faction, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, are responsible for flooding the Gaza Strip with illegal drugs.

The Palestinians’ attempt to establish a connection between Israel and illegal drugs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is no less dangerous than their terrorist attacks against Israel. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas are sending the following message to their people: The Jews are conspiring to destroy Palestinians by delivering illegal drugs to our communities. Therefore, we need to fight these Jews to prevent them from achieving

The Palestinians have never provided a shred of evidence to corroborate this false accusation against Israel. Why should they allow the truth to get in the way of a good story? Palestinian leaders are experts when it comes to blaming Israel and Jews, instead of the real sources, for all the miseries of their people.

Palestinian leaders are also unlikely to denounce the criminals and terrorists who planted the narcotics in the shampoo and cream bottles of ill women before they traveled for medical treatment in Egypt. Instead, Palestinian leaders will continue to incite their people against Israel and Jews, spreading blood libels of every sort at every turn. In that way, Palestinians will continue to hunt down Jews — whether they are behind trees and rocks or in plain sight.

The Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has long been serving as a center for various terrorist groups that are responsible for thousands of terror attacks against Israel. In the past few decades, these groups have engaged in smuggling various types of weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian terrorists also appear to be smuggling various types of illegal drugs into the Gaza Strip. Alarmed by the increased smuggling of illegal drugs, Hamas has begun waging a campaign against the drug-traffickers.

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A View of the U.S. from Across the Atlantic by Andrew Ash

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14741/us-politics-britain

My friends assured me there were terrible, terrible things that would become apparent in the ensuing months.

Even in the extended echo-chamber of social media, there appeared to be a seemingly pathological fear of anything even remotely resembling a balanced view.

The only thing that has not changed is the Democrats’ make-believe view that President Trump and the Russians were somehow trying to rig the election, when it was, in fact, they themselves who were doing that.

Before the advent of online news, residents of the UK had to rely on the British press to report on the minutiae of the American political system — something that didn’t happen all that often. In politics what went on in the USA, stayed in the USA, most of it at least. Beyond a major political upheaval, or the swearing in of a new president, news reportage was more concerned with the cut and thrust of our own routine domestic politics.

Only the bickering between the Democrats and Republicans rang a familiar note, mirroring as it did, our British Punch and Judy stereotype, with the stuffy old Tories on one side, and the loony-left Labour on the other.

By 2008, along with the advent of social media, and a growing awareness of international affairs, it became increasingly impossible not to notice the apparently out of proportion intensity driving the Democrat-Republican voter divide. Heralded in by the arrival of the US’s first president “of colour”, Barack Obama, and coinciding with the rising usage of Twitter and Facebook, the “Left” seemed to jump at the chance of embracing the one-dimensional limitations of an “echo chamber”. The “echo-chamber” served not only to widen the chasm between left and right, but — even to the outsider — noticeably amplified the animosity between the two sides. Compared to the almost polite political rivalry between voters and parties in Britain, the political division in the US began looking distinctly engineered.

My American friends, in an effort to help me try and understand their conclusions, sent a raft of articles from the US mainstream media, which, in their bias, displayed the same lack of integrity as my friends’. Even in the extended echo-chamber of social media, there appeared to be a seemingly pathological fear of anything even remotely resembling a balanced view.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France Bleeding Yet again, knife-wielding Religion-of-Peace member randomly kills in France. Stephen Brown

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

ttps://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/09/france-bleeding-stephen-brown/

It is a new, wonderful French cultural custom – to randomly attack and stab people to death in the street.

And the latest person to partake in this charming form of multicultural enrichment was an unidentified young Afghan who, armed with a knife and a barbecue spit, randomly attacked people at a bus stop in the city of Villeurbanne in the Lyon metropolitan area, killing one and wounding eight.

“There was a lot of blood. It was not a small cut,” said Nina, a witness, to Le Figaro newspaper. “There was a man wounded with three young children. He had blood on his face and on his tee-shirt.”

The person killed was a young, nineteen-year-old Frhenchman, Timothy Bonnet, whose love of music had brought him to Villeurbanne by chance that day to attend a music festival.

A witness said Timothy was among the first who tried to reason with the Afghan. He said the killer “stabbed him and when he fell to the ground, he continued (to stab him)”

Another witness reported Bonnet then “had trouble breathing.”

The killer also wounded a woman who likewise fell to the ground, whom a passerby covered with her body to protect her. And still another witness told Agence France Press that “A man at the 57 (bus) stop started stabbing people left, right and center.”

One can only imagine the terror and horror of those present.

After his attack at the bus stop, the killer ran to a subway station where he wounded still another person. At the subway, four bus drivers and other passersby “isolated” the killer, persuading him to drop his weapons. One was a knife with an 8 cm. blade. Police later found a knife with a 20 cm. blade under a vehicle that also belonged to the killer.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s Return Handshake An attack on Saudi oil production shows John Bolton was right.

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-return-handshake-11568578218

Since President Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Islamic Republic has tested U.S. resolve with military escalation across the Middle East. Likely Iranian involvement in attacks on Saudi oil production over the weekend marks a new phase in this destabilizing campaign, and it’s no coincidence this happened as Mr. Trump is considering a softer approach to Tehran.

Saudi Arabia reduced daily oil production by about 5.7 million barrels after strikes against facilities in the country’s east on Saturday. Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed credit, though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that Iran was responsible and there was “no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.” Iran denies this, but it usually uses proxies to avoid a direct confrontation and there are no other plausible culprits.

This is more than a local dispute between two regional powers. The attacks have caused a roughly 5% reduction in global daily oil production. The Saudis have promised to dip into reserves to offset the losses, but oil prices could rise and harm an already fragile global economy if the Kingdom isn’t able to restore production fast enough.

American shale oil production can take up some of the slack but that would take time. Long-term damage to oil supplies would increase the pressure on the U.S. to ease sanctions on Iranian oil exports, which Mr. Trump has been considering.

The attack continues what is already a hot proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, an important U.S. ally. The extent of the damage raises doubts about how well the Saudis can defend against future drone assaults. Saudi intelligence and air defenses don’t seem up to the job. Saudi revenues would be hurt by a reduction in oil output, and uncertainty will complicate an initial public offering of the country’s national oil company, Aramco.

Even if the Houthis didn’t carry out this attack, Iran is backing their war against an Arab coalition in Yemen. The Houthis have become increasingly aggressive in attacking sites in Saudi Arabia and oil tankers in the Red Sea. If the Saudis cede Yemen to the Houthis, Iran will have won another proxy war, this one on the Arabian peninsula. The Saudis are far from ideal allies, but U.S. Senators who want to end U.S. support for Riyadh should consider the alternative of Iranian regional dominance.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s A Mysogonistic White Supremacist? Then Explain These Results

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/16/trumps-biggest-failure-hes-had-no-success-at-being-a-white-supremacist/

President Donald Trump’s critics have called him many things during his nearly three years in office. “Racist.” “Fascist.” “Misogynist.” “Anti-middle class.” “Anti-poor.” And so on. But if that’s so, he’s failing miserably at all those things they accuse him of.

A spate of recent data and reports, including an update of the income and poverty statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau for 2017 and 2018, show just how bad that failure is.

Take that “racist” charge. The Census report shows that black unemployment, at 5.5% in August, is the lowest it’s been since records started being kept in 1972.

The gap between black unemployment and white unemployment is also the lowest on record.

Typically, the unemployment rate for African Americans is at least two times the white unemployment rate. Today, it’s about 1.6 times the white rate.

It isn’t only African Americans who are doing better. Both Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans now have near-record low unemployment rates.

Just ask the Washington Post. To its credit, it recently analyzed Labor Department data. What it found was shocking: More than 86% of the jobs added since the end of 2016 went to minorities. Out of 5.2 million new jobs, minorities accounted for 4.5 million.

If Trump’s a racist, he’s an abject failure.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Scapegoating a Young Minority Schools are pushing a curriculum that makes the possibility of a unified, post-racial America impossible. Hezekiah Kantor

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/15/scapegoating-a-young-minority/

A new school year is kicking off for millions of young Americans and, with an election year looming, expect heaps of new assignments meant to “explore public issues.” In thousands of schools throughout the United States, this will mean further political indoctrination by their mostly left-leaning teachers.

No doubt they will be taught about the “racial income gap” in the United States. Most teachers will suggest that the right remedy would be to enact progressive liberal reparations for approved “victim” groups at the expense of “oppressors.” But to accomplish this, it will be necessary first to scapegoat. And the ones being scapegoated —unsurprisingly—will be white men and their sons sitting in the classrooms.

Your kids will most likely read “objective” articles like this one from Time, which states matter-of-factly, “Nationally, black women earn 61 cents for every dollar earned by white men . . . one 2017 study shows that over a 40-year career, women overall lose $418,800 as a result of the wage gap, with women of color losing almost $870,000.” 

Lost to whom? Non-Hispanic white men, evidently. Or, if they are teachers like me, they can sit through “professional development” lectures about these “pay gaps” conducted by liberal females, most of whom are white and typically make over $100,000 a year. 

That’s what I got to do for five hours over two days recently, along with hundreds of other teachers from schools throughout my state. I work and teach while my white liberal administrators opine about all the “systems” that hold down our underachieving students. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trumped Out? – Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

amgreatness.com/2019/09/15/trumped-out/

After nearly four years of ceaseless attacks by Democrats and the press, the strange thing is not that Trump can be occasionally wearisome, but that he is even still breathing.

The new post-Mueller media narrative is “weariness” and “exhaustion” with President Trump’s tweets, his cul de sac Sharpie controversy, his ideas about buying Greenland, his unorthodox art-of-the-deal foreign policy that resulted in a plan to talk to Taliban leaders in the United States, and his firing of arch-conservative John Bolton.

The Drudge Report, once a go-to site for Trumpism, now seems unapologetically anti-Trump, in its often trademark snarky style.

Are Trump supporters then weary?

The August jobs report “unexpectedly” reminds us that never have so many Americans been at work. The 3.7 percent unemployment rate continues to be the lowest peacetime unemployment figure in 50 years. Black and Hispanic unemployment remain at record lows. Workers’ wages continue to rise. Talk of recession is belied by low interest, low inflation, low unemployment, and a strong stock market. The result is that millions of Americans enjoy far better lives than they had in 2016.

When we look to alternatives, all we seem to hear is multi-trillion-dollar hare-brained schemes from radical progressives and socialists masquerading as Democrats at a time of record national debt. The Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free healthcare for illegal aliens, reparations, the abolition of $1.5 trillion in student loan debt, and free tuition for all—are the stuff of fantasies and either would have to be repudiated by any of the Democratic nominees who actually was elected, or would destroy an already indebted nation.

So, again, where exactly is the supposed dissension in the Trump ranks, given that in 2020 he will be only the alternative to the above?

Too Many Tweets?

Many seem disappointed that after the implosion of the 22-month Mueller investigation, Trump’s polls have not neared 50 percent—given the final exposure of the entire collusion/obstruction hoax and the possibility of indictments to follow for those who had staged a veritable coup against the executive branch of the United States.

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The New York Times Anti-Kavanaugh Bombshell Is Actually a Dud By John McCormack

Posted By on September 16th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/the-new-york-times-anti-kavanaugh-bombshell-is-actually-a-dud/

The authors omit the fact that the alleged victim has no memory of the alleged incident.

If you opened Twitter on Sunday morning, you were likely greeted with the bombshell headline of the top trending news story: “NYT reporters’ book details new sexual assault allegation against Brett Kavanaugh.”

The allegation, Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly write in a New York Times story adapted from their forthcoming anti-Kavanaugh book, is this: “We also uncovered a previously unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his freshman year that echoes Ms. Ramirez’s allegation. A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”

Wait a second. Who did what to whom?

Kavanaugh’s “friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student”?

Can someone explain the logistics of the allegation here? Was Kavanaugh allegedly walking around naked when his friends pushed him into the female student?