NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Reihan Salam poised to bring Manhattan Institute to new highs

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

https://nypost.com/2019/02/19/reihan-salam-poised-to-bring-manhattan-institute-to-

Our favorite think tank, the Manhattan Institute, just got a new president: the brilliant, heterodox writer Reihan Salam.

Born and bred in Brooklyn and a graduate of the city’s public schools, he’s an excellent choice to lead the nation’s top institution for right-of-center urban policy.

And, as a writer who for more than a decade has been leading the push to refocus the Republican Party on the needs of less-affluent Americans, he’s also a perfect pick for the challenges of the Trump era.

Executive editor at National Review and a contributing editor at The Atlantic and National Affairs, he’s eager to engage not just conservatives but the whole range of US society — exactly the proper attitude for a righty in this town.

An advocate for families and the working class, the son of Bangladeshi immigrants, he’s guaranteed to bring an independent cast of mind to tired debates, while maintaining MI’s support for free markets and intellectual excellence.

Salam, 39, will succeed Larry Mone, who led the Manhattan Institute through 24 years of enormous growth, solidifying its role as a national leader in public policy and positioning it as the premier home of “quality-of-life conservativism.”

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Why it’s so hard to revoke the citizenship of terrorists By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

https://nypost.com/2019/02/19/why-its-so-hard-to-revoke-the-citizenship-of-terrorists/

What allegiance does the United States owe to our enemies when they are our own citizens?

More than we should.

The question arises due to the case of Hoda Muthana, a young woman born in Alabama, the daughter of Yemeni immigrant parents.

As too often happens, the impressionable young Muslim was drawn, in her teen years, into fundamentalist Islam. This ideology — commonly called “radical Islam,” but more accurately labeled “sharia supremacism” — teaches that Muslims have a duty to impose and spread Islamic law throughout the world. It fuels violent jihadism and other aggressive Islamist strategies, pressuring governments and societies to concede to fundamentalist Muslims the right to live autonomously — i.e., to adhere to sharia whenever it conflicts with domestic law.

This is a profoundly dangerous concession. Sharia supremacism is anti-American and anti-Western. It systematically discriminates against women and non-Muslims; it rejects our notions of equality, freedom, and privacy. Basically, it is counter-constitutional.

The result in Muthana’s case was dire. She fled to Syria to join the Islamic State terrorist network — the ISIS caliphate. And she was all in, calling for violent jihad against the West and the annihilation of the United States in ISIS recruiting messages on social media. “Spill all of their blood or rent a big truck n drive all over them. Kill them” — that is what she called for her fellow radicals to do to her fellow Americans.

Though just 24 years old, Muthana is on her third marriage, her first two husbands having been ISIS militants killed fighting American and other armed forces. She has an 18-month-old son, born of her second marriage, to a jihadi killed in Mosul.

She was captured by Kurdish forces and is now living in a refugee camp in Syria. Naturally, she is expressing remorse and pleading that she be permitted to return with her son to her family in Alabama.

Clearly, she is not a sympathetic case. Nevertheless, she has a right as an American to be admitted back into the United States.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Crazy Andy’ McCabe thinks ‘it’s possible’ Trump could be a Russian spy By Rick Moran

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/crazy_andy_mccabe_thinks_its_possible_trump_could_be_a_russian_spy.html

Just how far off the deep end has anti-Trump hysteria taken former and current FBI and Justice Department officials? The former acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, who opened a federal investigation on the president of the United States to discover if he fired former FBI Director James Comey at the request of Vladimir Putin, still says “it’s possible” Donald Trump is a Russian spy.

The Hill:

“I think it’s possible. I think that’s why we started our investigation, and I’m really anxious to see where [special counsel Robert] Mueller concludes that,” McCabe said when asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper if Trump could be a Russian asset.

The comment comes after McCabe admitted he opened an investigation into whether Trump was acting at Moscow’s behest after the president fired former FBI Director James Comey, adding that none of the top eight congressional leaders objected when he briefed them in 2017.

He also revealed last week that senior officials discussed the possibility of removing Trump under the 25th Amendment and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensteinoffered numerous times to secretly record his conversations with the president.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

12 Of The Craziest College Classes In America, All Subsidized By Your Tax Dollars It’s no wonder figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rocketed straight out of liberal institutions and onto the national stage with proposals like the Green New Deal—they’re doing exactly as they were taught. by Spencer Brown

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/20/12-craziest-college-classes-america-subsidized-tax-dollars/

It’s a common understanding that America’s colleges and universities are thick with leftist professors, administrators, and young progressives-in-training who pay through the nose for a “higher” education. But what exactly makes up an education today? As someone who’s been on dozens of embattled liberal campuses in the last two years, I’m still surprised by the absurd courses offered at the institutions people around the world consider to be elite.

Yes, the situation on campus is worse than most people think: Classes teach students about “Unsettling Whiteness” and “Latinx Sexual Dissidence.” Karl Marx and his failed ideas are propped up by aging academics who believe their socialist hell should be imposed on us all. The free market is written off as the flawed experiment of cisgendered white men.

It’s no wonder figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rocketed straight out of liberal institutions and onto the national stage with proposals like the Green New Deal—they’re doing exactly as they were taught. The courses listed in “Comedy & Tragedy,” a report we compile annually at Young America’s Foundation, provide a lens through which recent campus controversies may be better understood.

Deplatforming conservatives, student riots in response to guest speakers, safe spaces, and therapy alpacas are all inspired by the intersectional, victim-obsessed curriculum taught to the rising generation. A list of the 12 most bizarre and politically correct courses, presented with their original descriptions, is below. The full report is available here.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Based On ‘Discrimination’ Law, Iowa Jury Awards Trans Woman $120,000, Access To Male Prison Facilities A jury in Iowa has concluded that the state discriminated against a prison nurse in not letting her use the bathrooms with male employees or paying for a double mastectomy.By Nicole Russell

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/20/based-discrimination-law-iowa-jury-awards-trans-woman-120000-access-mens-facilities-prison/

A jury in Iowa has concluded that the state discriminated against a former Iowa Department of Corrections nurse because the employer wouldn’t let her use the bathrooms with male employees. The jury also said the Iowa Department of Corrections denied Jesse Vreogh health care coverage for “medically necessary surgery”—i.e. a double mastectomy to look more like a man.

The jury awarded Vreogh $120,000 for the “emotional distress” of both instances based on Iowa’s sexual orientation and gender identity law, which was introduced in 2007 and signed by Democrat Gov. Chet Culver. Lawmakers of both major parties vote for such bills in statehouses and cities around the country. Indiana’s Republican governor, for example, is pushing anti-speech legislation on related topics and grounds.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa said Wednesday that the ruling is a “historic win for transgender rights in Iowa.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

Ocasio-Cortez Boyfriend Troubles Reveal the Corruption at the Heart of Her Campaign By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/ocasio-cortez-boyfriend-troubles-reveal-the-corruption-at-the-heart-of-her-campaign/

Last week, an enterprising conservative political consultant unearthed evidence that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) may have hired her boyfriend, Riley Roberts, to work in Congress. This news actually unraveled a far bigger story of corruption, however. As it turns out, a political group helping Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign had already paid Roberts during the campaign — and those payments from that shady organization may be the reason Ocasio-Cortez is in Congress today.

On Wednesday, Luke Thompson, a podcast host and former staffer for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), shared some damning research into Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign. He discovered more about the relationship between Riley Roberts and the campaign, but he also unearthed a humongous corruption story.

Luke Thompson had originally unearthed the central piece of evidence tying Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional office to Riley Roberts — her boyfriend’s official congressional staff email. In the wake of this news, some people noticed that the Ocasio-Cortez campaign paid Roberts $1,750, but Thompson insisted this was only “a means of keeping accounting in order.” During the first half of 2018, the boyfriend volunteered with the campaign, and his efforts were classified as an in-kind contribution. This is normal.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe: Trying to Legitimize Iran’s Regime by Giulio Meotti

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13762/europe-iran-legitimacy

“The E.U. only seems to care about the nuclear agreement and trade ties. It pretends that the regime is legitimate and that Iranians have no alternatives to living under tyranny”. — Alireza Nader of New Iran, reported by Benjamin Weinthal, Fox News.

“The fact that the Ayatollah had executed thousands of people, including many writers and poets since his seizure of power in Tehran had provoked only mild rebuke from Western governments and public opinion… With the fatwa against Rushdie, we thought the whole world would mobilise against the ayatollah, turning his regime into an international pariah. Nothing of the kind happened”. — Amir Taheri, former executive editor-in-chief of Iran’s leading newspaper, Kayhan.

Worst of all, now Europe’s highest court has effectively adopted Khomeini’s idea of blasphemy. The European Court of Human Rights recently decided that an Austrian woman’s conviction for calling the Prophet of Islam “a pedophile” did not breach her freedom of speech. The sharia style of “blasphemy” has now become a potent weapon to stifle and suppress free speech.

“In looking to the future, Ayatollah Khomeini has spoken of his hopes to show the world what a genuine Islamic government can do on behalf of its people”, wrote Princeton University professor Richard Falk at the dawn of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979. He was one of the many Western intellectuals who, in a mix of misconception and naiveté, supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime. These deaf Western secularists succumbed to the charm of the Iranian clerics who have just celebrated the 40th anniversary of their regime. It is useful to remind the public that Khomeini orchestrated his Islamic revolution from Neauphle-le-Château, a village 20 miles outside Paris.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Joan Ryan becomes eighth Labour MP to quit, blaming ‘culture of anti-Semitism’ under Corbyn leadership by Harry York

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/19/joan-ryan-eighth-labour-mp-quit-blaming-culture-antisemitism/

An eighth Labour MP has quit the Labour Party to join a breakaway group after accusing Jeremy Corbyn of presiding over a “culture of anti-Semitism”.

Joan Ryan said under Mr Corbyn’s leadership Labour had become a party that “allows racism to flourish” alongside a “hatred of Israel” and she would be joining the Independent Group.

She said that she felt she had a “duty” to resign after seven Labour MPs quit the party on Monday including Luciana Berger, who said that under Mr Corbyn anti-Semitism had become “institutional”.

She said that Mr Corbyn, the Labour leader, had introduced anti-Semitism to the party and was a “danger”.

Ms Ryan told The Times: “It’s obviously not a delight, it’s painful. But it is a duty. I wasn’t elected as a Labour MP to watch this happen, and I have no choice but to stand up to it. For me this is a moral issue.”

She said that she found it “hard to say” that Mr Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. “I don’t want to say what’s in somebody’s heart,” she said.

“But I’ve long said if he wanted to prove he wasn’t then his actions could have done that for him, and he hasn’t done that.”

“And I’m surprised that he wonders when people think he is. But I think the bigger point is that he’s allowed the Labour Party to become institutionally anti-Semitic, and he has a direct responsibility as leader of this party.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey’s ‘Food Terrorism’: Blaming ‘Global Powers’ for Country’s Ills by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13758/turkey-west-blame

“Until today, [neither global powers nor their local Turkish collaborator subcontractors] have… been able to make Turkey bend down the way they want it to on any issue. Seeing that they could not [achieve their goals] by means of foreign exchange rates, interest rates, diplomacy or perception politics, they are now trying to do it through onions, potatoes, eggplants, cucumbers and peppers.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Ankara’s anti-Western statements and politics not only make Turkey an unstable and unreliable NATO ally, but also blind many Turks to the realities of the world, thwart their intellectual growth and render them unable to grasp what is really happening to them in their own country.

At a rally on February 13, ahead of Turkey’s municipal elections — slated for March 31 — President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blamed “global powers” (meaning the West) for the country’s serious economic problems and massive rise in the price of produce.

Alluding to “food terrorism,” Erdoğan said:

“Until today, [neither global powers nor their local Turkish collaborator subcontractors] have… been able to make Turkey bend down the way they want it to on any issue. Seeing that they could not [achieve their goals] by means of foreign exchange rates, interest rates, diplomacy or perception politics, they are now trying to do it through onions, potatoes, eggplants, cucumbers and peppers.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Cost of Democratic Socialism By Svetozar Pejovich

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/19/the-cost-

A defining feature of the 20th century was the struggle between capitalism and three major types of socialism: Communism, national socialism, and fascism. All three types of socialisms, as well as Cuba and Venezuela today, failed to duplicate the accomplishments of capitalism in raising the standard of living. Yet, a supposed new brand of socialism, “democratic socialism,” is emerging in the United States. Democratic socialism has two objectives consistent with all other types of socialism: the top-down control of resource allocation and the top-down predetermined economic outcome. But democratic socialism also has one institution that is said to set it apart from its predecessors: democratic socialism supports democratic elections.

Unfortunately, the undeniable economic success of capitalism made it unlikely that voters would support democratic socialism at the ballot box on the basis of efficiency. Democratic socialists, the so-called progressives, instead found their rallying cry in income inequalities. They promise the equalization of incomes via a variety of redistributional policies such as extraordinary marginal tax rates on high incomes, government sponsored jobs, weakening of private property rights via regulations, and measures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s return-to-the-cave proposal, called the “Green New Deal.” (As a footnote: In the Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx and Engels criticized German socialists for advocating income equality).

Redistributional policies call for more administrative programs. Those programs require more bureaucrats and bigger budgets. More bureaucrats and bigger budgets increase the role of government in the economy. More government in the economy increases the transfer of resources from competitive economic markets to political markets. And this transfer of resources to political markets incentivizes people to vote for a living. Clearly, democratic socialists want to throw out the equality of opportunity in favor of the equality of outcome. Electing the progressives must have consequences.