IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

How to Think About the Caravan Column: A challenge to American sovereignty that exploits our humanitarianism Honduran caravan Getty Images BY: Matthew Continetti

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://freebeacon.com/columns/how-to-think-about-the-caravan/

King Leonidas had his 300. President Trump has his 800. That’s the number of soldiers Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has ordered to the southern border to greet the caravan of illegal immigrants originating from Honduras. The band of families and singles, traveling en masse to avoid exploitation by smugglers and coyotes, now numbers 10,000 souls, according to one report. It may take them weeks to reach the United States. A second caravan is already taking shape behind the first. It won’t be the last.

An unauthorized march on a border—any border—is a challenge to national sovereignty. And it is precisely the idea of sovereignty that one of the groups supporting the caravan, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, wants to undermine. The confrontation is all the more emphatic when the men at the head of the column bear the flag not of the country they seek to enter but that of their homeland. Americans who oppose illegal immigration and are concerned at the mounting crisis in our border states, where thousands of family units and unaccompanied children are detained as an inundated bureaucracy decides their fates, look to Trump, Mattis, and the Army for relief.

Prepare to be disappointed. The soldiers aren’t going to the border to stop the caravan. They’re going to assist Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Health and Human Services, and other authorities as they take in the newcomers. There is little the government can do to turn back the tide. Why? Because the same rule of law challenged by illegal immigration also incentivizes and protects the illegal immigrants within the caravan. It’s a paradox—one inflaming this most polarizing of issues at a moment of political decision.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Nolte: NBC News Hid Information that Would Have Cleared Kavanaugh of Avenatti Rape Allegations

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2018/10/26/nolte-nbc-news-hid-info-wouldve-cleared-kavanaugh-avenatti-rape-allegations/

On September 16, Kavanaugh and his loved ones were dropped into a pit of hell due to allegations of sexual assault from Christine Blasey Ford. Although her story quickly fell apart during public testimony, for the three-plus weeks that would follow, in an effort to derail his confirmation, Democrats and their allies in the establishment media did everything in their power to personally destroy this man as a drunken serial rapist.

NBC News and Avenatti played a huge role in this obscene smear campaign. One notable example was NBC breathlessly publishing and airing an assault allegation against Kavanaugh that was quickly exposed as a hoax. NBC did not even bother to independently corroborate this allegation prior to airing it. A Democrat handed NBC the smear, and NBC ran with it.

To make matters worse, we now know NBC News withheld crucial information that undermined the allegations made by Swetnick, the Avenatti client who accused a high school-aged Kavanaugh of spiking punch bowls at house parties so he and his buddies could engage in serial rapes.

And we know NBC deliberately withheld this crucial information because NBC is now admitting it had this information all the way back on September 30.

On September 30, a week prior to Kavanaugh’s confirmation, during the most intense days of this scandal, when Kavanaugh’s confirmation was still very much in doubt, here is what NBC did not want the public to know…

If you recall, although he withheld the name, Avenatti tweeted out a sworn statement from a woman who backed up Swetnick’s outrageous rape allegations. In her statement, this second woman swore that she, too, had witnessed Kavanaugh spike punch bowls and take sexual advantage of girls.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bombgate and the new species of political theatre If the goal was to embarrass Donald Trump or coax voters away from the GOP in the midterms, I’ll bet you a Nate Silver dollar it won’t work Roger Kimball

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://spectator.us/bombgate-political-theatre/

Andrew McCarthy, writing in National Review Online a couple of days ago, was certainly correct that it would have been outrageous and irresponsible to have suggested, at that early juncture of this still-unfolding episode, that the pipe ‘bombs’ were hoaxes devised by leftist activists to make it appear that nebulous right wing activists are targeting famous critics of Donald Trump, from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, all the way down the food chain to Senator ‘Spartacus’ Booker and Mad Maxine Waters.

But the fact that McCarthy’s column is titled ‘Why No One Trusts the Media’ tells you that his prudent restraint is redolent of that device rhetoricians denominate apophasis or praeteritio. ‘After all,’ quoth McCarthy, ‘there is no evidence that the atrocious but thankfully unsuccessful targeting . . . was carried out by political leftists. There is no proof that any Democrat was hoping to cast suspicion on Republican supporters, to suggest to voters, less than two weeks before the midterms, that Trump and GOP rhetoric incites violence. To intimate, in the absence of any proof, that left-wing agitators may be responsible would be a condemnable smear.’ And it is surely premature, not to say unjustified, to say that Mark Antony pimped his wife, had unnatural relations with Octavian, and is guilty of bribery, extortion, and desecration.

Here’s what we know as of Friday morning, October 26 2018, at about 10:30. A dozen, apparently make-believe bombs, none of which has detonated, and at least some of which could not be detonated, have been sent by nobody knows whom to an A and B list of prominent Trump haters. This has precipitated round-the-clock, flood-the-zone coverage. ‘Hundreds’ of journalists have signed a letter condemning President Trump’s ‘attacks on the press.’ CNN even ran a chyron referring to recipients of the fantasy bombs as ‘Trump’s targets.’ And a man in Florida called Cesar Sayoc has just been arrested in connection with the envelopes.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Ohio Man Arrested Attempting to Join ISIS Affiliate in Afghanistan 19-year-old Naser Almadaoji was arrested at the Columbus airport trying to leave the country. By Patrick Poole

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/ohio-man-arrested-attempting-to-join-isis-affiliate-in-afghanistan/

Federal prosecutors say that 19-year-old Naser Almadaoji of Beavercreek, Ohio, was arrested on Wednesday attempting to fly to Kazakhstan via Washington, D.C., and Germany, where he intended to be smuggled into Afghanistan to join the ISIS affiliate there.

Almadaoji’s arrest at the John Glenn International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, was the culmination of an investigation that began in February of this year after he was questioned by immigration officials on his return from a trip to Egypt and Jordan.

He later began communicating online with someone he believed to be an ISIS operative, who was actually an FBI confidential source. He told the confidential source that he wanted to join up with ISIS in Afghanistan because he wanted “weapons experts training, planning, executing, hit and run, capturing high-value targets, ways to break into homes and avoid security guards.”

Almadaoji attended Beavercreek City Schools in southwest Ohio near Dayton until September 2015, at which point he withdrew from school.

According to U.S. Attorney for Southern Ohio Benjamin Glassman, Almadaoji came to the U.S. from Iraq about a decade ago. Glassman also said that at some point Almadaoji made a video of himself pledging allegiance to ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. CONTINUE AT SITE

POLITICS Comments turned off

Arkansas Dem Under Fire After Profane and Intimidating Confrontation with Female Opponent By Debra Heine

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/election/arkansas-dem-under-fire-after-profane-and-intimidating-confrontation-with-female-opponent/

A Republican candidate in Arkansas says her opponent for a state Senate seat, Democrat Greg Leding, physically intimidated her after a debate earlier this week, getting in her face, spewing profanities, and promising her she will be defeated.

At least one Republican Party employee has called the altercation at the Fayetteville forum an “assault,” the Arkansas Times reported, as Leding, the incumbent, put his hand on challenger Dawn Clemence before stomping off.

Leding immediately issued the following statement, according to 40/29 News:

My opponent called out to me from the stage. So she wouldn’t have to lean down to talk, I joined her on the stage. I apologize for patting her shoulder as we parted.

Leding tried again with a statement that was distributed by the Democratic Party:

After the forum, I left the stage. My opponent made some additional comments to me, so I hopped back up on stage, joining her at its edge. I’ve worked very hard to serve all the people who live in the district I represent—work that has consistently included legislation and advocacy for women, teachers, students, firefighters, working families, and more—and that work’s been misrepresented in this campaign. I was frustrated, but it’s not acceptable to act on that. I apologize to Mrs. Clemence.

In these closing weeks of the campaign, I’ll continue to hold public events, keep walking door to door, and keep working hard for all Arkansans.

Not impressed, Clemence responded with the following statement:

When you encroached on my personal space, pointed your finger in my face, and placed your hands on me, you demeaned the office you currently hold and the one in which you seek.

Clemence released a copy of her notes about the altercation that she wrote down when she got home. She said Leding stormed off the stage after the debate and then came back to confront her, pointing his finger and calling her “a f*cking liar.” She wrote that when she said he needed to defend his record, he jumped up on the stage and “blew up in my face.”

He used his body to move her backwards, she wrote. “Very threatening! CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Insulting Islam Now Illegal in Europe By Jim Treacher

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/insulting-islam-now-illegal-in-europe/

On September 25, 2012, two weeks after the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, President Barack Obama stood before the United Nations General Assembly and said the following:

“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

I didn’t like this at the time, because I saw it as a capitulation to Islamic terrorists. Less than a month after his own ambassador was murdered, the president of the United States told the whole world: “Hey, free speech is great and everything, but if you hurt the feelings of these guys, you deserve whatever you get.” He lied about the reasons for the Benghazi attack, blaming it on a stupid YouTube video that had nothing to do with it, and then he doubled down in the most shameless way imaginable. He betrayed American ideals because he couldn’t or wouldn’t admit he was wrong.

And it worked. A few weeks later Obama was reelected, which was the only thing he cared about.

But as it turned out, my concerns were unfounded. Obama didn’t strike a blow against liberty that day. He didn’t embolden tyrants and terrorists. Free speech is just fine, everybody!

Claire Corkery, The National (UAE):

An Austrian woman who was convicted for insulting the Prophet Mohammed did not have her right to freedom of speech violated, a European court has ruled.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that courts in Austria, where the woman was found guilty, had balanced the “right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria”.

The woman, who has been named only as ES, held seminars in 2009 for Austria’s far right Freedom Party in which she made defamatory remarks relating to the Prophet Mohammed’s marriage to Aisha, which is usually misrepresented as being to an underage girl.

In other words: In 2018 Europe, you can’t say that Mohammed was a pedophile or the law will come after you. Punishing you for insulting a man who’s been dead for 1,400 years isn’t a violation of your human rights, because you’ve offended a protected class. You’ve pissed off the wrong people, and now you’ll pay. CONTINUE AT SITE

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Eternal Return of a Malevolent Charade By Roger Kimball

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/26/the-eternal

The eternal return—Friedrich Nietzsche thought the idea was horrifying. Life as an endless merry-go-round in which the same things keep recurring, forever. That prospect, Nietzsche thought, was the hardest, weightiest, most depressing idea mankind could ever confront. It was part of Nietzsche’s blustering nihilism that he should first conjure the most unpleasant idea he could think of and then announce that true heroism lay in embracing it.

The rest of us may be less enthusiastic about the prospect of ceaseless repetition. After all, we’ve all had a foretaste of what it entails in the remarkable career of socialism. Like the fabled hydra, socialism is an evil that suffers decapitation after decapitation only to spring back to life, its blood—or, rather, the blood of its victims—somehow sprouting ever new heads of credulousness.

The Soviet Union was “really existing communism,” under whose aegis millions were impoverished, tortured, and murdered (but, according to the New York Times, the sex was great). Western intellectuals, gullible creatures that they are, adulated that steaming tyranny. Eventually morons like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II brought to an end that horrible “experiment in living.”

Chairman Mao probably has the distinction of having murdered more people than any other single human being. His efforts to bring compulsory fraternity to China has yet to be definitively repealed; indeed, China seems to be slipping backwards towards a new embrace of centralized tyranny.

Where else have we seen socialism on the march? In Cuba, of course, an island paradise that the Castro brothers transformed into a murderous police state. Then there was Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Like the Earl of Strafford, Pol Pot’s motto was “Thorough.” Wearing eyeglasses was for him evidence of counter revolutionary sentiment since it signaled an interest in such despicable bourgeois pursuits as reading. The result were those mountains of skulls for which his reign was infamous. We all know about North Korea: possibly the worst place on earth under the Kims, though it must be said that Venezuela, once the richest country in South America, under Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro is well on its way to socialist apotheosis, i.e., total collapse.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Chelsea Clinton is Saving the Planet With Shorter Showers, Private Jets Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271751/chelsea-clinton-saving-planet-shorter-showers-daniel-greenfield

Don’t you care about the planet?

While you wallow lasciviously in your shower for a whole 5 minutes or 600 seconds, the noble heroes of the Left are sacrificing their shower time to save the planet.

Here’s a heartbreaking interview with Chelsea Clinton, possible presidential candidate in 2024.

Q. What changes have you made in the past five years in your family life to be environmentally conscious?

A. I’ve always recycled and used smart light bulbs and tried to take short showers. The things that seem small are the things that if we all did would make a profound impact.

And the really small things, like taking smaller private jets.

Chelsea Clinton opted to travel to a “clean energy” roundtable in this week in a private jet to campaign on behalf of her mother Hillary Clinton.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Matthew Vadum: Non-Functioning Bombs and Double Standards Endorsers of Antifa terror are suddenly outraged about non-exploding packages.

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271753/non-functioning-bombs-and-double-standards-matthew-vadum

Political terrorism is almost exclusively the province of the Left in America, so naturally, conservatives find the timing of the delivery of non-functioning, vaguely scary-looking replicas of letter bombs this week to opponents of President Trump suspicious to say the least.

Remember that the Democratic National Committee has officially endorsed the violent Black Lives Matter movement and that more than a few Democrats support the Antifa terrorist movement. Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 running-mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), whose son Woody is an Antifa terrorist, said recently that Democrats need to “fight in the streets” against Republicans.

Intended recipients of the packages include former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Trump critic and actor Robert DeNiro, and leftist billionaire George Soros, CBS News reports.

Some of those targeted are the worst purveyors of violent rhetoric targeting Republicans.

Hillary Clinton embraced violence against Republicans when she said Oct. 9, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about. That’s why I believe if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and/or the Senate that’s when civility can start again.”

So did Maxine Waters when she said June 23, “And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore anywhere”

Eric Holder said Oct. 10 that Democrats need to get physical with Republicans. “Michelle [Obama] always says ‘When they go low, we go high.’ No. No. When they go low, we kick them,” he said to a cheering crowd at a political rally.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How to Win a Cold War With Beijing Unlike with the Soviets, the key is controlling the seas—so bolster the Navy and work with allies. By Seth Cropsey

Posted By on October 26th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-win-a-cold-war-with-beijing-1540507833

Vice President Mike Pence announced a turning point in Washington’s relations with Beijing. In a speech Oct. 4 at the Hudson Institute, he acknowledged that four decades of attempts by the U.S. to make China a “stakeholder” in global norms and institutions had failed. The White House now promises to shift relations accordingly.

Mr. Pence didn’t offer specifics, but there’s no shortage of steps the administration could take to assert U.S. interests against China’s hegemonic goals. It should recommit to defending American allies in East Asia and improving U.S. forces’ ability to deter Chinese expansion.

Deterrent measures fall into two categories: actions the U.S. can take unilaterally, and steps that must be taken together with regional allies. East Asian countries increasingly are joining the U.S. in believing that a triumphant China will “treat us like dogs,” as one Asian diplomat remarked to me recently.

For starters, the U.S. Navy needs to expand its fleet. The Trump administration has committed to increasing the number of active ships to 355 from about 280 today. But this expansion must be carried out by 2030, rather than along the 30-year timeline the White House proposed. An accelerated naval buildup would give China proof of U.S. intent to resist its regional ambitions, speaking to President Xi Jinping in a language that needs no translation.

The U.S. could begin by commissioning an additional carrier strike group to be forward deployed in the Indo-Pacific region. The one U.S. aircraft carrier now based in Japan cannot cover the vast Indo-Pacific single-handed, nor can it provide the striking force the U.S. would need in a war. An additional carrier strike group would also allow the U.S. to increase patrols of the South China Sea, including the Taiwan Strait’s international waters. Involving U.S. allies in these patrols would advance like-minded nations’ interest in protecting freedom of navigation.

U.S. forces must also be prepared to respond in kind to Chinese provocation. China’s challenge of a U.S. destroyer near the Spratly Islands last month was an example of passive aggression. China recently has conducted cyberattacks against corporations, including defense contractors. The U.S. government also is a frequent target; China launched a cyberattack on the Naval War College as early as 2006. The White House published a new National Cyber Strategy last month, declaring that the U.S. will retaliate against all confirmed cyberattacks. This is sound deterrence. The administration will discourage China’s provocations by meting out commensurate punishments.