FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Time for a Frank Discussion on NATO The US continues to shoulder the burden of an alliance that may have outgrown its usefulness. Ari Lieberman

Posted By on February 7th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272787/time-frank-discussion-nato-ari-lieberman

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in 1949 as a collective defense pact against the aggressive designs and intentions of the Soviet Union. Turkey was accepted into NATO in 1951. The latest NATO entry was the tiny Balkan nation Montenegro, which ascended in 2017.

The United States shoulders the lion’s share of NATO’s budget and the defense of Europe. According to one estimate, US expenses associated with the defense of Europe totaled US$36.0bn in 2018, which represents 5.5% of the US defense budget and 6.3 times the amount President Trump is asking to facilitate the construction of a barrier or wall on the US-Mexico border.

With the fall of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the threat of a mass Soviet invasion of Western Europe instantly vanished. Western style democracy and free enterprise triumphed decidedly over totalitarianism and stifling socialism.

Despite the diminished threat, NATO still served a valuable purpose in that its collective defense doctrine promoted regional and world stability. Indeed, following the 9-11 attacks, NATO invoked the principles of Article 5, providing for collective defense of alliance members. It was an extraordinary expression of solidarity with the United States, which witnessed the worst attack ever perpetrated on its soil.

HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Military on the Border: Appropriate Response to a Crisis How does a house stand without walls? Michael Cutler

Posted By on February 7th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272778/military-border-appropriate-response-crisis-michael-cutler

On February 3, 2019 ABC News posted an AP (Associated Press) report, “Pentagon sending another 3,750 troops to Southwest border.”

The ABC/AP report noted that the Trump administration was sending those members of the armed forces to the U.S./Mexican border to bring the total number of active-duty troops to 4,350. The Pentagon said that the soldiers would be installing 150 miles of concertina barbed wire and assist with surveilling the border, but not have direct contact with any illegal aliens or aid in their arrest by the Border Patrol. Reportedly, however, the soldiers will be able to help defend Border Patrol agents who come under fire.

The news report included this excerpt:

The announcement is in line with what Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan had said on Tuesday when he provided estimates for the next phase of a military mission that has grown in size and length. Critics have derided it as a political ploy by the White House as President Donald Trump seeks billions to build a border wall.

It is astonishing that anyone would actually believe that protecting America and Americans from the entry of uninspected aliens and cargo is a “political ploy.”

Is the oath of office the President, Vice President or members of Congress take a political ploy?

In point of fact, the political foes of the border wall are playing politics with national security, public safety, public health and the livelihoods of American and lawful immigrant workers.

Even though prior administrations, including those of George W. Bush and Barak Obama, have sent military units to back up the Border Patrol, the fact that President Trump would take this action incites the knee-jerk deprecatory reactions of his foes.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Moral Idiocy of Our Times How leftist political degeneracy leads to civilizational collapse. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on February 7th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272764/moral-idiocy-our-times-bruce-thornton

One of the foundational myths of modernity holds that the progress of scientific knowledge and technology has been accompanied by moral progress. As wealth and knowledge increase, the old impediments to moral improvement such as poverty, religious superstition, and ignorance are being swept away, resulting in a kinder, gentler, and more pacific human nature.

Last week we were presented with evidence that this argument is woefully mistaken. In New York a bill was passed that removed restrictions on late-term abortions, allowing infants viable outside the womb to be killed “at any time” to protect the mother’s life or “health.” Worse yet, this regression into primitive custom was met with celebratory cheers and a standing ovation by the “lawmakers” who had approved it. In Virginia a similar law was proposed but rejected. It had been defended by Del. Kathy Tran and Gov. Ralph Northam (pictured above). They admitted that a baby could be killed even after the mother went into labor, or after delivery. Tran, by the way, on the same day as she introduced the bill to liberalize late-term abortions, also introduced a bill to protect gypsy moths and cankerworms.

In other words, infanticide, once a practice of savage and barbaric cultures like cannibalism, incest, and human sacrifice, has now been legalized by the culture that boasts of its moral progress and superiority. But this legislation is not just a return to ancient brutality, but a species of moral idiocy much worse than the savagery of the past.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The 1978-1997 warming trend is an artifact of instrumentation By S. Fred Singer

Posted By on February 7th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/the_19781997_warming_trend_is_an_artifact_of_instrumentation.html

Now we tackle, using newly available data, what may have caused the fictitious temperature trend in the latter decades of the 20th century.

We first look at Ocean data. There was a great shift, after 1980, in the way Sea Surface Temperatures [SSTs] were measured; [REF. see Goretzki and Kennedy et al. JGR 2011 Fig. 2] “Sources of SST data:” Note the drastic changes between 1980 and 2000 as global floating drifter buoys geographic changes increasingly replaced opportunities for sampling SST with buckets.

Data taken from floating drifter buoys increased from zero to 60% between 1980 and 2000. But such buoys are heated directly by the sun with the unheated engine inlet water in lower ocean layers; this combination leads to a spurious rise in Sea Surface Temperature [SST] when the data are mixed together.

In merging them, we must note that buoy data are global, while bucket and inlet temperatures are (perforce) confined to (mostly commercial) shipping routes. Nor do we know the ocean depths that buckets sample; inlet depths depend on ship type and degree of loading.

Disentangling this mess requires data details that are not available. About all we might demonstrate, is the possibility of a distinct diurnal variation in the buoy temperatures.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who’s Afraid of Socialism? The new Democratic agenda sure looks like government control over the means of production.

Posted By on February 7th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/whos-afraid-of-socialism-11549498364

Now that Donald Trump has criticized the “new calls to adopt socialism in this country,” Democrats and the media are already protesting that the socialist label doesn’t apply to them. But what are they afraid of—the label or their own ideas? The biggest political story of 2019 is that Democrats are embracing policies that include government control of ever-larger chunks of the private American economy.

Merriam-Webster defines socialism as “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”

The U.S. may not be Venezuela, but consider the Democratic agenda that is emerging from Congress and the party’s presidential contenders. You decide if the proposals meet the definition of socialism.

• Medicare for All. Bernie Sanders’ plan, which has been endorsed by 16 other Senators, would replace all private health insurance in the U.S. with a federally administered single-payer health-care program. Government would decide what care to deliver, which drugs to pay for, and how much to pay doctors and hospitals. Private insurance would be banned.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why Won’t the British Left Pick on Someone Else? by Denis MacEoin

Posted By on February 7th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13659/britain-labour-party-israel

Why are Labour members not speaking out loud about the need to boycott or overthrow such a regime as Iran, but instead focus all their venom on Israel, a country they demonize on wholly false grounds, especially considering the full IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which Labour has technically adopted — while reserving the right, however, to criticize Israel as an apartheid or Nazi state?

Whatever its faults, Israel is a utopia for human rights that many self-congratulatory moralists identify as their personal preserve. Israel is the only Middle Eastern country to uphold all the rights the Labour Party claims to hold precious. Yet, Israel is the only country in the world that the Labour party reserves for its censure, while other countries are ignored, mildly rebuked or even cosied up to.

In reality, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have largely governed their own people since 1994, following the signing of the Oslo Accords. The Palestinians, however, continue to go through inconceivable suffering due to the atrocious governance by their own often corrupt and manipulative leaders. They continue to blame Israel and the Jews — preferable, apparently, to blaming themselves.

“Victimization is the pain-orientated version of privilege. If it suffices to call oneself oppressed in order to be in the right, everyone will fight to occupy that slot.” — Pascal Bruckner, An Imaginary Racism: Islamophobia and Guilt.

The 2018 annual conference of Britain’s Labour Party proved that, however strong the criticism, and however embarrassing the scandal, there are many in England who will get on with their top priority: slandering and libelling one of the world’s most outstanding countries, Israel. At the same time, they seem never to tire of singing the praises of the Palestinians, regardless of the savagery with which they govern their own people.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Stirring the Pot By Marilyn Penn

Posted By on February 7th, 2019

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/topic/politics/

Normally committed to a daily dose of Israel-bashing, the NYT outdid itself on Feb 6th with two front page articles in the News section and sourly in the Food Section. “Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen” by the Pakistani/Iranian author Yasmin Khan, offers recipes for roast chicken, cauliflower soup and spicy shrimp and tomato stew. Although these sound appetizing, the meat of the article is the opportunity to offer the following observation made about the West Bank when the author worked for War on Want, a British charity: “Seeing the physical apparatus of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank was very hard to witness.” We are told that in writing this book, she “made a point not to quote any Israeli sources..an absence that she hoped would send a message: Palestinian voices are not always heard. Listen.” Then, with unsated appetite, the Times journalist quotes Joudie Kalla, author of Palestine on a Plate: “If you look deep into the books, they are about keeping our heritage alive in a world that is so desperately trying to hide us away.”

Where to begin? In order of her comments, I assume that the apparatus Ms Khan refers to is either the wall or the security checkpoints that separate the West Bank from Israel proper. Both were instituted to deflect the numerous suicide bombers and terrorist activity levied against Israel since it acquired the West Bank in its self-defense against the Arab war of aggression in 1967. Without belaboring the long history of Arab refusal to accept a Jewish state, it is hard to believe that any sophisticated traveler would be more upset by the checkpoints in disputed territory than those at every major airport in today’s world. Ms Khan doesn’t mention that the standard of living for Palestinians on the West Bank is superior to that of their fellow countrymen in Gaza, Jordan or any other Arab country.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Are the US and Other Democracies in Trouble? by Judith Bergman

Posted By on February 7th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13680/democracies-trouble

It is apparent that, over time, Jewish American Democrats will find themselves the voters and donors of a party that will initially seek to marginalize them, then ostracize them, and finally, demonize them.

With the last election cycle putting Islamists, who are openly hostile to Jews, in the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party has jettisoned even the pretense of repudiating their anti-Semites.

This transformation will be brought about by a group of new leaders who will have the means effectively to rebrand their emerging power base, either implicitly or explicitly, as the Neo-Islamic Democratic Party, thereby asserting a dominance that will make today’s political landscape unrecognizable.

It is more than painful, as anti-Semitic libels are whitewashed by the media or risk becoming part of the Congressional Record, to watch the American Jewish community being played by the political party that many have called “home.”

Are democracies in trouble?

As someone outside the world’s most powerful democracy, the United States, it is concerning to see how many countries in the West are being transformed. In Europe, free speech continues to be seriously eroded, churches are desecrated, and religious Europeans murdered.

There are signs that the same transformation is beginning in the United States, as well.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trump’s Iran Terror Comments Draw Ire in Tehran A string of rhetorical attacks from Iranian officials against perceived U.S. aggression has preceded the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution By Sune Engel Rasmussen

Posted By on February 6th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-iran-terror-comments-draw-ire-in-tehran-11549456108

Iran hit back at President Trump’s State of the Union address in which he called Tehran the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, saying the U.S. has a history of backing brutal regimes in the Middle East.

“U.S. hostility has led it to support butchers & extremists, who’ve only brought ruin to our region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted Wednesday.

Responding to Mr. Trump’s allegations that Iran has threatened genocide against the Jewish people, Mr. Zarif said that all Iranians, including Jewish compatriots, were commemorating 40 years of progress despite U.S. pressure.

The comments were the latest in a string of rhetorical attacks from Iranian officials using the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution on Feb. 11 to attack the U.S. for perceived aggression and imperialism around the world.

The 1979 Iranian revolution, which toppled the authoritarian regime of the U.S.-backed shah, began four decades of hostility between Tehran and Washington. To the U.S., countering Iranian influence remains a primary objective of its presence in the Middle East.

In his State of the Union address, Mr. Trump also noted that his withdrawal last year from the multination nuclear pact with Iran and the subsequent imposition of sanctions were to ensure Tehran never acquired nuclear weapons.

“We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants death to America and threatens genocide against the Jewish people,” Mr. Trump said during the address to U.S. lawmakers.

And in an interview with CBS on Sunday, Mr. Trump said he wanted to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, who are there to fight Islamic State, “because I want to be able to watch Iran.” CONTINUE AT SITE

POLITICS Comments turned off

Cory Booker….from October 2018

Posted By on February 6th, 2019

https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/09/bookers_stance_on_kavanaugh_leads_to_blowback.html

At age 15, Cory Booker once wrote, he tried to grope the breast of a girl who had given him “an overwhelming kiss” on New Year’s Eve. She pushed his hand away once, and then he succeeded on his second try. Nothing more ensued.

Booker, now a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey, wrote about the incident as a student at Stanford University in a column taking aim at the campus culture of men trying to get women to sleep with them.

“I had begun listening to the raw truth from men and women discussing rape about two years ago as a peer counselor,” Booker wrote. “The conversations were personal accounts, not rhetoric; they were real life, not dorm programing. It was a wake-up call — I will never be the same.”
Senator Cory Booker Accused of Sexual Assault by Gay Man

https://www.wibc.com/blogs/chicks-right/himtoo-senator-cory-booker-accused-sexual-assault-gay-man
Gay Man Says Booker Assaulted Him In Restroom

A gay man who identified himself as a liberal Democrat is accusing New Jersey Senator Cory Booker of sexually assaulting him in 2014.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote a lengthy open letter that was posted on Twitter, in which he describes the assault that occurred in a bathroom following a meeting at his workplace, where the two met.

The letter “goes into excruciating detail,” according to PJ Media:

I stopped to use one of the building’s single-occupancy restrooms. Upon washing my hands prior to leaving, I hear knocking on the door. When it comes to these restrooms, it is customary to knock first in case someone is using it, even though there is an inner lock. When I opened the door, Mr. Booker was there. He smiled and very gregariously said, “Hey!” We engaged in some brief idle chitchat in the entryway and then he asked me to speak in private. What happened next, happened so fast that it was hard for me to comprehend what was going on. It was one of those surreal moments where what was happening was such a deviation and such a perversion of one’s natural daily routine that I hardly knew how to react. He pulled me into the bathroom, albeit not too forcefully, and slowly pushed me against the restroom wall. He said that “Being a hero was a serious turn-on.” He continued, “The Senate appreciates fine citizens like you. Especially this senator.” He then put his left hand on my groin, over my jeans, and began to rub. I seem to remember saying something like “What is happening?” It was a bit like having vertigo. He then used his other hand to grab my left hand with his right and pulled it over to touch him. At the same time, he disengaged from rubbing me and used his left hand to push me to my knees from my shoulder for what was clearly a move to have me perform oral sex on him. At that point, I pulled away quite violently and told him I had to go. I did not see him again before he left.