ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Peter Smith: Exorcising Marx and His Economics

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/10/exorcising-marx-economics/

Regard Marxism as the economic equivalent of a dead language and it makes some sort of sense — worthy of study for its place in the pantheon of human knowledge and doleful impact when implemented, but otherwise having no contemporary utility

How do you tell a communist? Someone who has read Marx and Lenin. How do you tell a non-communist? Someone who has understood Marx and Lenin.
—President Reagan
______________

“There is a great deal of ruin in a nation,” wrote Adam Smith philosophically in the late eighteenth century. He no doubt thought it would be ever thus. He was oblivious, of course, to the claimed curative powers of Marxism as practically expressed in communism. However, as a man of practical affairs, Smith today would not be impressed. After all, Marxism in practice has always produced the most dreadful results imaginable. What kind of people would downplay this overwhelming evidence and hold to the faith? In a word, idealists, the same kind of people who subscribed to Robert Owen’s utopian socialism before Marx and Engels came on the scene. They are a legion to this day.

This is what the renowned historian of economic thought Mark Blaug wrote in 1968, in Economic Theory in Retrospect: “Marx is alive and well today. He has been reassessed, revised, refuted, and buried a thousand times; but he refuses to be relegated to intellectual history.” Fifty years on, Blaug would not need to change a word.

As old Marxists fade away new ones replace them. Marx’s resilient spirit stalks the corridors of humanities departments in most Western universities, ready to possess those amenable to believing in the promise of nirvana in the here and now. Saul Alinsky (in Rules for Radicals) has a nice take on this promise:

to seize power and give it to the people; to realise the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health, and the creation of those circumstances in which man can have the chance to live by values that give meaning to life.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Here they come! Another illegal immigrant caravan forming in El Salvador By Rick Moran

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/here_they_come_another_illegal_immigrant_caravan_forming_in_el_salvador_.html

NBC News is reporting that another illegal alien caravan is forming in El Salvador and will begin its trek to the U.S. border soon.

As the Trump administration makes preparations to combat the 6,500-member Honduran migrant caravan making its way toward the United States, the Department of Homeland Security is also tracking a new caravan taking shape – this time from El Salvador, according to two U.S. officials, a local source on the ground in Central America and an internal U.S. government report obtained by NBC News.

The El Salvadoran caravan is still forming, but its members have plans to begin their journey northward toward the U.S. next week, according to the sources.

The internal report indicates that DHS is tracking the communications of caravan members, including a 230-member WhatsApp group that intends to leave on Oct. 31.

With the DHS “tracking the communications of caravan members,” you have to believe it has a pretty good idea of who is organizing these invasions.

Some international do-gooder organizations are saying it’s not they.

It’s unclear exactly how the caravan started in Honduras, but it appears to have no formal leadership.

“No one is capable of organizing this many people. Nobody,” said Irineo Mujica of Pueblo Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders), which is providing support to the group. “It’s an exodus.”

Many Mexicans have turned out to help the migrants, handing out food and sometimes clothes in each town where they stop.

That woman is either naïve or disingenuous. There are many groups capable of organizing such a caravan. All it takes is a little money and a few people who know what they’re doing.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The Pipe-Bombs Story: Another Example of Why No One Trusts the Media By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pipe-bombs-story-why-no-one-trusts-media/

The political Left has been known to orchestrate frame-up attacks designed to make it appear that right-leaning opponents are responsible for violent acts and plots.

If I wrote the paragraph above in the context of reporting or commenting on the pipe bombs that were reportedly sent by an unidentified person or persons to prominent Democrats, many people would react angrily, and rightly so. After all, there is no evidence that the atrocious but thankfully unsuccessful targeting of the Obamas, the Clintons, CNN, George Soros, and Eric Holder (as well as Debbie Wasserman Shultz, whose Florida office was given as the return address on some of the packages) 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.

That’s why this paragraph, by the usually sensible Will Rashbaum in the New York Times’s report on the apparent attempted bombings, is so infuriating:

Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Soros and CNN have all figured prominently in conservative political attacks — many of which have been led by President Trump. He has often referred to major news organizations as “the enemy of the people,” and has had a particular animus for CNN.

The report goes on to say that the CNN bomb package was addressed to former Obama CIA director John Brennan (who is actually a commentator at MSNBC, not CNN). The Times then adds, gratuitously, that Brennan “is a harsh critic of Mr. Trump,” who revoked Brennan’s security clearance “in what was seen as an act of retribution.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Papadopoulos Told FBI Informant in 2016 There Was No Russian Collusion in Trump Campaign By Debra Heine

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/papadopoulos-told-fbi-informant-in-2016-there-was-no-russian-collusion-in-trump-campaign/

For months, Republicans have been claiming that classified documents revealed exculpatory evidence that should have been included in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Carter Page — and now The Hill’s John Solomon has the scoop.

In mid-September of 2016, weeks after the Russia counterintelligence probe was launched, then-Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told an FBI informant there was no collusion going on between the campaign and Russia that he knew of, and that such activity would be “treasonous.”

Papadopoulos told Solomon that he made the comments to London-based professor and FBI informant Stefan Halper.

“He was there to probe me on the behest of somebody else,” Papadopoulos said. “He said something along the lines of, ‘Oh, it’s great that Russia is helping you and your campaign, right George?’”

Papadopoulos said Halper also suggested the Trump campaign was involved in the hacking and release of Hillary Clinton’s emails that summer. “I think I told him something along the lines of, ‘I have no idea what the hell you are talking about. What you are talking about is treason. And I have nothing to do with that, so stop bothering me about it,’” Papadopoulos recalled.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Violence Against Gays on the Rise in Europe By Bruce Bawer

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/violence-against-gays-on-the-rise-in-europe/

On October 22, about three thousand people rallied in central Paris “to denounce assaults on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and demand urgent action from the government.” Among the many recent incidents that had sparked the protest, noted Reuters, were “the beating of a gay couple by their cab driver” the previous week and the murder in August, in the Bois de Boulogne, of a “transgender sex worker.” Another report on the rally mentioned two additional, and particularly high-profile, incidents: in September, an actor named Arnaud Gagnoud was beaten up after giving his boyfriend a hug outside a theater in Paris’s 20th arrondissement; on October 16, Guillaume Mélanie, founder of the gay-rights group Urgence, was gay-bashed in a Paris street.

I looked at several news stories (in several languages) about these incidents – and about that October 22 rally. None of them included the words Muslim or Islam, even though the Religion of Peace is, to put it mildly, a major part of the problem – not just in Paris, of course, but all over Western Europe. Everybody knows this, even though virtually nobody feels comfortable talking about it. In most media reports of such incidents, indeed, the Islamic factor can only be discerned through exceeding careful reading.

Take a German paper’s report last May on a series of violent assaults on gays in Berlin’s Neukölln district. One of the victims reported that he’d been “singing and dancing” in a subway station late at night when “a group of young men aggressively confronted him, claiming they felt insulted by his extravagant behaviour.” Quick quiz: what’s the key word here? That’s right: “insulted.” Gay-bashers of Western origin don’t feel “insulted” by gay people’s behavior, and even if they do, they don’t bother prefacing a homophobic beat-down by saying so; they just start punching away. The “insult” thing is totally Islamic.

That German paper recounted several recent Berlin gay-bashings in detail, noting that while such attacks in that city are nothing new, they’ve undergone a notable increase in levels of brutality. But there was no explicit mention of Islam.

Sometimes the role of Islam is hinted at, but only obliquely. Consider a piece about gay-bashings in Berlin that appeared last June in the Irish Times. There was no mention of Muslims in the first several paragraphs, which, on the contrary, attributed gay-bashings in Berlin to a “backlash” against gay rights by “straight men who have problems with their own sexuality.” Only if you made it all the way to the end of the piece did you encounter a curiously phrased reference to – get this – “the threat to the gay community, real or perceived, from conservative Turkish and Arab men, and criminal gangs from Romania and Bulgaria.” Note the artful use of the words “perceived” and “conservative” (National Review subscribers, apparently) and the determined avoidance, again, of the words Islam or Muslim. CONTINUE AT SITE

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Crude Pipe Bombs Sent to Obama, Clintons, CNN; No Injuries . By Colleen Long, Michael Balsamo & Eric Tucker

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/24/suspicious_packages_sent_to_obama_clintons_cnn_evacuated_138446.html

Crude pipe bombs targeting Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, CNN and others were intercepted Tuesday night and Wednesday in a rash of attacks two weeks before nationwide elections that could reshape Congress and serve as a referendum on the first two years of President Donald Trump’s presidency.

The devices, which officials said shared a similar design, were aimed at prominent Democrats and a cable news network often criticized by political conservatives. A similar device was found Monday at the New York compound of liberal billionaire George Soros, a major contributor to Democratic causes.

The bombs overtook other campaign news in an already-tense political season, which has included pitched fights over immigration, the Supreme Court and sexual violence against women.

The White House quickly condemned the attacks aimed at Democrats and perceived foes of the administration.

“Acts or threats of political violence have no place in the United States,” Trump said. “This egregious conduct is abhorrent.”

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

OBAMA ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION WHEN HE WAS A SENATOR

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1054874705491120133

POLITICS Comments turned off

2018 Midterms: All About Obama . By Michelle Malkin

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/24/2018_midterms_all_about_obama_138440.html

Former President Selfie Stick is back in action, firing up Democrats before the midterms with his signature rallying cries:

I, I, I, I! Me, me, me! My, my, my!

According to a tally by The American Mirror’s Kyle Olson, Barack Obama’s campaign speech Monday for Nevada Senate Democratic candidate Jacky Rosen referred to himself 92 times in 38 minutes — or an average self-allusion every 24.7 seconds.

When he wasn’t “I”-ing, the former narcissist-in-chief was lying.

“Unlike some, I actually try to state facts,” Obama snarked passive-aggressively in a swipe at President Donald Trump. “I don’t believe in just making stuff up. I think you should actually say to people what’s true.”

Sit down, Mister “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”

Thanks to you, my husband, children and I lost not one, not two, not three but four private individual market health plans killed directly by Obamacare. Reminder: When the health insurance cancellation notice tsunami hit in 2013, liberal Mother Jones magazine sneered that the phenomenon was “phony.” But after 4 million American families received cancellation letters at the end of 2013, Obama’s health care prevarication was finally deemed the “Lie of the Year” by left-leaning PolitiFact.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Newton’s Anti-Semitism Problem Radical teachers enlist local reporter to cover up anti-Semitism in Newton, MA schools. Ilya Feoktistov

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271717/newtons-anti-semitism-problem-ilya-feoktistov

Ilya Feoktistov is Executive Director of Americans for Peace and Tolerance.

Newton, Massachusetts, a large Boston suburb, has an anti-Semitism problem in its public schools. Some Newton high school teachers, trained by Saudi and Qatari-funded curriculum mills, teach about the history of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict in ways that the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights defines as anti-Semitic.

Influenced by anti-Semitic classroom portrayals of the Jewish state, some Newton students have bullied their Jewish classmates with Nazi comparisons; and swastikas have appeared at a couple of schools.

In response to the situation, local activists have been engaged in grassroots campaigns to remove the anti-Semitic elements in the Middle East curriculum. The campaign, initiated by APT, strongly supported by CAMERA, and recently joined by the group Education Without Indoctrination (EWI), has included an in-depth investigation of the curriculum by APT, a short APT documentary about the events, a scholarly report by CAMERA analyzing curricular materials, numerous published articles, as well as correspondence with the school committee, the school superintendent, and Newton’s mayor. More recently EWI initiated a lawsuit against the Newton School Committee over an illegal lack of transparency. National news stories have emerged about biased teaching in Newton schools.

Now, after seven years of grassroots campaigns, Boston’s establishment Jewish leaders, who were for a long time reluctant to address the problem, have finally acknowledged it. On October 9, at a public meeting hosted by the Israeli-American Congress (IAC), the Jewish Community Relations Council, the New England branch of the ADL, and the Committee on Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), all discussed the biased Middle East curriculum at Newton schools. All the groups, including the IAC, agreed that the curriculum and the teachers who use it are promoting anti-Israel lies to Newton students. The event further augmented the mounting negative publicity and pressure on the schools and teachers to act. Instead of addressing the problem, the very next day the educational establishment in the city struck back.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: VIDEO STEVE BANNON’S FILM TRUMP@WAR

Posted By on October 24th, 2018

I saw this movie last night with a very enthusiastic audience. It is a tad too long and makes a rather extravagant claim that Trump destroyed Isis. Not so fast- Isis is killing and kidnapping throughout Africa and Asia and establishing camps in South America.

However, it presents a compelling case for Trump and his success in the economy, foreign policy, taxes and trade. The scenes of Trump’s antagonists on violent and destructive rampages are harrowing.

Directed by Bannon and produced by Dan Fleuette, Trump @War is a retelling of the most significant election campaign in modern U.S. history and a look forward to the high-stakes midterm election in November 2018, which will cement President Trump’s legacy.

You can view it on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TODyyR5GRqw&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DTODyyR5GRqw&has_verified=1