WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Murray Walters The Kavanaugh Rorschach

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/10/kavanaugh-rorschach/

At this point, we don’t know how the SCOTUS nominee’s saga will turn out. And it is precisely because we don’t, and can’t, that the pro forma, gender wars projections of misandrist opinionistas tell us much more about them than they realise, or, lets face it, than they care.

No one knows whether Dr Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations describe an event that actually happened, or happened exactly as she describes it. We may learn more, from the FBI investigation, or not. Whatever the result, the lurid circus that is the U.S Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation process, and now the hearing into Dr Blasey Ford’s allegation of sexual assault by Judge Kavanaugh, (when she was 15 and he was 17) is a Rorschach screen to the American mind.

For those who don’t know, the Rorschach test is a series of inkblot prints used to explore unconscious thinking, or bias. Since the black-ink images represent nothing in particular, the interpretations given to them by subjects can only come from the mind of the subject. It was popular in the early twentieth century when psychoanalysis held sway, but is very seldom, if at all used these days. It survives best as a prop for jokes, like the one where the frustrated subject, looking at image after image of meaningless black smudges, berates the psychologist: “I don’t see how showing me pictures of my parents having sex is supposed to help me with my problems.”

And the famous Get Smart sketch where the doctor testily upbraids Smart for crassly remarking that all the ink blots look like a man and a woman having sex:

Doctor (with German accent): “You’ve got a very one track mind, Mr Smart”.

Smart: “Well doctor, you’re the one with the all the dirty pictures.”

You get the point.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Israel’s ‘Nationality’ Law and Palestinian Lies by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13052/israel-nationality-law-palestinians

It is far from clear why the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip should be concerned about Israel’s new Nation-State Law. The Palestinians living in these areas are not Israeli citizens and are not part of the Israeli political system. The Palestinians living in these areas have their own (Palestinian) citizenship, their own flag, their own parliament and their own government. They are not affected by the law in any way. This fact renders their opposition to the law little less than ridiculous.
This is the logic of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians: Israel defining itself as a Jewish state is an act of “racism” and “apartheid,” while, as a matter of course, the future Palestinian state will be an Islamic state governed by Sharia law, and that, presumably, is not an act of “racism” or “apartheid.”
Before condemning Israel for seeking to preserve its character as a Jewish state, the world needs to explain why it is all right for the Palestinians to plan that their future state will be ruled by Islamic law.
We are witnessing yet another remarkable mirror image brought to us by the Palestinians: once again, they seek to deny Israel precisely what they believe should come to them on a silver platter.

For the past few weeks, the Palestinians and their leaders have been raising strident voices against Israel’s new Nation-State Law, which specifies the nature of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The Palestinians have condemned the law as “racist” and claimed that it paves the way for Israel becoming an “apartheid state.”

This week, Palestinians declared a general strike in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest the law, which, they say, “eliminates the two-state solution.”

It is far from clear, however, why the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip should be concerned about the new law. The Palestinians living in these areas are not Israeli citizens and are not part of the Israeli political system. The Palestinians living in these areas have their own (Palestinian) citizenship, their own flag, their own parliament and their own government. They are not affected by the law in any way. This fact renders their opposition to the law little less than ridiculous.

Because they have their own parliament and state institutions, the Palestinians are free to pass any laws they wish without seeking permission from Israel or any other party.

Most people are unaware that the Palestinians do have their own laws, including the “Palestinian Basic Law,” which was passed by the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2002.

Why is it important to remind the world of this Palestinian law now?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

P.T. Barnum Had Nothing on the Democrats’ Freak Show By Joan Swirsky

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

https://canadafreepress.com/article/p.t.-barnum-had-nothing-on-the-democrats-freak-show

The Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus that I attended in my youth showcased acts like the freak show in which people with all sorts of bizarre physical features would attract millions of morbidly curious wide-eyed visitors.

But even Tom Thumb and the Siamese twins, the bearded lady and the dog-faced boy, and the head of Medusa that “turned men into stone” had nothing on the oddities of the 2018 circus that billed itself as the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee’s Hearing to determine if Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s selection for the Supreme Court, is fit for that august position.

Those oddities, however, were not physical, but rather deformities of character, integrity, honor.

After an exhaustive interview process, a marathon of visiting members of Congress for personal interviews, and being investigated six times by the FBI for his position as U.S. Circuit Judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (and other lofty positions), the married father of two adorable young daughters seemed headed straight to take his place beside the president’s former pick, conservative jurist Neil Gorsuch.

But wait! What is this slithering worm in the ointment?

It was the prospect of a majority of conservative justices on the highest court in the land eventually overturning their most cherished law—the “right” to kill in-utero embryos, fetuses, and babies…right up to the ninth month of pregnancy! And we all know how proud State Legislator Obama was about his legislation in Chicago that allowed doctors to snuff the lives out of living, breathing infants who survived the gruesome abortion procedure.

As far as the left is concerned, you can take military strength, low taxes, high employment (for blacks, Hispanics, women and youth), the genuine protection of our borders, equitable treaties between the U.S. and other countries, huge inroads in foreign policy, on and on and on, and throw them all in the garbage in comparison to the absolute Holy Grail of leftism: abortion.
THE PLAN

The Democrats’ initial plan to quash the Kavanaugh nomination was to grill him so relentlessly and to examine his judicial decisions so microscopically that personal and professional flaws would be found to disqualify him for the job. It turned out, to their everlasting anguish, that he passed all the tests with flying colors and the only remaining procedure was a vote in the Senate which promised to be narrow but successful.

Then quite suddenly—literally out of the blue, it seemed—came a challenge to Judge Kavanaugh’s heretofore sterling reputation: an accusation from a female professor in California that when teenager Kavanaugh and his friend were 17 and drunk, he groped her 15-year-old self and her bathing-suit-clad body and put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream. Her report was a little sketchy—not sure of the date or venue—but quite sure of the perpetrator.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Epitaph for a Dying Culture By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/30

The Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and their endless sequelae have ended up as an epitaph for a spent culture for which its remedies are felt to be worse than its diseases. Think 338 B.C., A.D. 476, 1453, or 1939.

The coordinated effort to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court required the systematic refutation of the entire notion of Western jurisprudence by senators and much of the American legal establishment. And there was no hesitation in doing just that on the part of Senate Democrats, the #MeToo movement, and the press. And I write this at a moment in which conservatives and Republicans still control the majority of governorships, state legislatures, the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court and the presidency—a reminder that culture so often is far more powerful than politics.

So, here we were to be left with a new legal and cultural standard in adjudicating future disagreements and disputes, an utterly anti-Western standard quite befitting for our new relativist age:

The veracity of accusations will hinge on the particular identity, emotions, and ideology of the accuser;
Evidence, or lack of it, will be tangential, given the supposed unimpeachable motives of the ideologically correct accuser;
The burden of proof and evidence will rest with the accused to disprove the preordained assumption of guilt;
Hearsay will be a valuable narrative and constitute legitimate evidence;
Truth is not universal, but individualized. Ford’s “truth” is as valid as the “Truth,” given that competing narratives are adjudicated only by access to power. Ford is a victim, therefore her truth trumps “their” truth based on evidence and testimony.
Questionable and inconsistent testimony are proof of trauma and therefore exactitude; recalling an accusation to someone is proof that the action in the accusation took place.
Statutes of limitations do not exist; any allegation of decades prior is as valid as any in the present. All of us are subject at any moment to unsubstantiated accusations from decades past that will destroy lives.
Assertion of an alleged crime is unimpeachable proof. Recall of where, when, why, and how it took place is irrelevant.
Individual accusations will always be subservient to cosmic causes; individuals are irrelevant if they do not serve ideological aims. All accusations fit universal stereotypes whose rules of finding guilt or innocence trump those of individual cases.
The accuser establishes the conditions under which charges are investigated; the accused nods assent.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Month That Was – September 2018 Sydney M. Williams

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda, once said, if a lie is repeated often enough it becomes truth. The anti-Trump crowd has mastered Goebbels’ advice. We have been told repeatedly, in increasingly shrill voices, that Mr. Trump is incompetent, self-obsessed, destructive, toxic, impulsive, petty, adversarial, ineffective. One U.S. Senator, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a woman who lied about her heritage, has urged Congress to remove him by invoking the 25thAmendment. Another, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a man who lied about his experience in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, called him “an unindicted co-conspirator,” questioning the legitimacy of his presidency. Two reporters from the Financial Times, in an article on Brazil, compared Mr. Trump to Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte, claiming him to be anti-gay, anti-women and anti-Black. So, the question is:given his successes:the 2017 tax bill, reducing regulation, lowering unemployment, returning the capital of Israel to Jerusalem, rendering ISIS less dangerous, bringing North Korea to the table, and getting European nations to up their payments for NATO. What would his achievements have been if he had been thoughtful, constructive and competent?

Increasingly, Democrats rely on hate. Hate needs a menace, as Shelby Steele noted in a recent Wall Street Journalop-ed. What started out by Democrats sixty years ago as a fight against injustice – especially racism and segregation – has morphed into fictional enemies, ones necessary for the Left to obtain and retain power. Like Machiavelli, means, no matter how insidious or dishonest, are justified because of the “noble” end sought. Mr. Steele suggests (optimistically?)that “the source of its angst and hatefulness is its own encroaching obsolescence.” I hope so. The use of personal smears to gain political advantage has become endemic to the Left, making imperative the need for at least one prominent Democrat to stand up, using words like those uttered by Joseph Welch in 1954, in response to Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) attacking Army Secretary Robert T. Stevens: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?Have you left no sense of decency?” Democrats are not alone in the willful destruction of people’s character, but they have taken the practice to new levels. Character assassination comes directly from the playbook of Joseph Goebbels.

Partisanship grows deeper. Every time Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) opens his mouth, the gulf widens. In his farewell address to the nation, George Washington warned against what he called the “…baneful effects of the spirit of party…” rooted in “the strongest passions of the human mind.” But, could he have envisioned the priggish hyperbole of those like Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-NY), as they interviewed Judge Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the Supreme Court, or the sullying of his character by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) who withheld until the last minute a letter from a woman alleging Judge Kavanaugh assaulted her as a teenager? Could President Washington have predicted the publication of a letter published in The New York Timesby “Anonymous,” disparaging the White House as an out-of-control fraternity house and the President as an impetuous, tempestuous idiot? Could the man who spoke the words, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports” have predicted a society where religion is disparaged, morality considered relative and students instructed to find their “own” truths? Could the Father of our Country have envisioned a time when his descendants would create a dystopian world where concepts of dignity and respect have become subordinated to victimization and identity politics? Have we fallen so far that rising again is not possible? Has partisanship made our legislative bodies dysfunctional? Do we no longer elect individuals who can think and act independently of party? Have we reached the end of civilization? I don’t think so, but it is easy to become discouraged.

EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

University Corruption Have the diversity cultists completely taken over? Walter Williams

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271463/university-corruption-walter-williams
I’m thankful that increasing attention is being paid to the dire state of higher education in our country. Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has just published “The Diversity Delusion.” Its subtitle captures much of the book’s content: “How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.” Part of the gender pandering at our universities is seen in the effort to satisfy the diversity-obsessed National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, each of which gives millions of dollars of grant money to universities. If universities don’t make an effort to diversify their science, technology, engineering and math (known as STEM) programs, they risk losing millions in grant money.

A UCLA scientist says, “All across the country the big question now in STEM is: how can we promote more women and minorities by ‘changing’ (i.e., lowering) the requirements we had previously set for graduate level study?” Mac Donald says, “Mathematical problem-solving is being deemphasized in favor of more qualitative group projects; the pace of undergraduate physics education is being slowed down so that no one gets left behind.”

Diversity-crazed people ignore the fact that there are systemic differences in race and sex that influence various outcomes. Males outperform females at the highest levels of math; however, males are overrepresented at the lowest levels of math competence. In 2016, the number of males scoring above 700 on the math portion of the SAT was nearly twice as high as the number of females scoring above 700. There are 2.5 males in the U.S. in the top 0.01 percent of math ability for every female, according to the journal Intelligence (February 2018).

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Jeff Flake’s Confirmation Circus Outgoing senator earns a place in infamy as he betrays justice — and fellow Republicans.Matthew Vadum

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271486/jeff-flakes-confirmation-circus-matthew-vadum

The Senate Judiciary Committee may have approved the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh on a straight party-line vote Friday, but the confirmation process will not wrap up until the end of the week at the earliest.

And Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the high court remains in doubt. If Kavanaugh fails to be confirmed, the proximate cause will be the treachery of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

It’s the same old sad, tired story of Republicans snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. With the midterm elections approaching and the possibility of Democrats recapturing the Senate looming, every delay only works to Democrats’ advantage. The longer the process drags on, the more fake victims with implausible stories can surface to bear false witness against Kavanaugh. Putting the final Senate vote off only helps the bad guys.

The Supreme Court will be shorthanded this morning as it begins hearing cases in its new term. It normally has a complement of nine justices but with Anthony Kennedy’s retirement July 31, which cleared the way for Kavanaugh’s nomination, there have been only eight justices. Roughly speaking there is a 4-to-4 liberal to conservative ideological split on the court. Democrats are trying to drag the confirmation process into the next Congress where they hope to seize control from Republicans. Election Day is November 6. The GOP currently controls the Senate, which has the final say on judicial nominations, by an uncomfortably close margin of 51 to 49.

Things had gone well for Kavanaugh Thursday at an evidentiary hearing pitting him against attempted rape accuser Christine Blasey Ford, who made herself look ridiculous on national television. Ford can’t remember much if anything of the high school party she alleges took place more than 30 years ago. The only thing she claims to remember with perfect certainty is that Kavanaugh, the would-be ninth member of the Supreme Court, somehow tried to rape her. She can’t remember when or where the party was, how she got there, how she got home after, or much else. The witnesses she claims were there for the party either deny her claims or don’t remember being there. It is obvious to anyone who watched the hearing that the left-wing activist is lying.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Nationalists in Germany Now the Second Largest Party By Rick Moran

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/nationalists-in-germany-now-the-second-largest-party/

Despite charges from mainstream politicians that it is “fascist,” the right-wing Alternative to Germany party is now polling second, ahead of the left-wing Social Democrat Party.

The party’s growing popularity may be due to its strong stand against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s lax immigration policies. Or, it could be because it offers a clear alternative to the oddball coalition cobbled together by Merkel of Social Democrats and the chancellor’s CDU party.

Last month, when an AfD politician in parliament stood up and lambasted Merkel for her lax policies, the chamber erupted in insults and smears of AfD. That caused the 19 AfD deputies to walk out of parliament.

NPR:

It is the latest sign that many citizens are drawn to a populist movement that is reshaping politics in Germany, a trend that’s playing out in Europe and elsewhere. AfD politicians are regularly accused of extremism and don’t shy from the type of nationalist rhetoric that mainstream German politicians largely have shunned since World War II. After launching in 2013, Alternative for Germany has grown powerful by focusing especially on the public’s fears and frustrations over the country taking in record numbers of migrants and refugees in recent years.

That’s the superficial view. But there’s a lot more to the AfD’s growing popularity than stoking nativist fears:

So, how has the AfD managed to garner so much support for its “alternative” for the country?

According to Werner Weidenfeld, a political scientist at the University of Munich, the party appeals to a variety of sectors. “The AfD supporters are not all right-wing radicals,” he says. There is a range of backers, including “disappointed middle-class” citizens and “some right-wing extremists.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who Was behind the Flake Set-Up? By John Fund

Posted By on October 1st, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/who-was-behind-the-flake-set-up/

ACORN’s tactics live on in the senator’s elevator confrontation with activists from a Soros-backed group.

On Friday morning, two women raced past reporters and security officers and blocked a senators-only elevator in the U.S. Capitol. They cornered Arizona senator Jeff Flake, who had just announced he was going to vote yes on moving Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination out of the Judiciary Committee and onto the Senate floor for a full debate. The women wouldn’t let Flake leave until had they yelled at him, face to face, for several minutes. Anyone who thinks the two left-wing activists acted without a well-thought-out plan hasn’t read The Intimidation Game by Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal.

A CNN camera broadcast the event live, and from there it went viral. “Thank you,” Flake said, as he was finally allowed to exit after one of the women revealed, apparently for the first time, that she’d been sexually abused:

I was sexually assaulted, and nobody believed me. I didn’t tell anyone, and you’re telling all women that they don’t matter. . . . That’s what you’re telling all of these women. That’s what you’re telling me right now. Look at me when I’m talking to you! You are telling me that my assault doesn’t matter. . . . Don’t look away from me. Look at me.

The New Yorker reported that, after the incident, Flake “looked more withdrawn than ever, eyes wet, voice a little frayed, chin tucked down in the somber knot of his tie.” Shortly afterward, Flake voted to refer Kavanaugh’s nomination to the full Senate but with a sudden proviso: He wouldn’t vote for the judge on the floor unless the vote was delayed to do an FBI investigation, “limited in time to no more than one week,” into “current allegations that are already there.” Democrats rejoiced.

A reporter for the Washington Examiner asked Flake, “Did the women who confronted you this morning, did they have any role in changing your mind?”

“No, no,” Flake said as he shook his head.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Elizabeth Warren to consider a 2020 presidential run after midterms

Posted By on September 30th, 2018

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/09/30/elizabeth-warren-to-consider-a-2020-presidential-run-after-midterms/23546556/

A presidential run may soon be on the horizon for Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The Massachusetts Democrat announced on Saturday that she will seriously consider running for the White House following the midterm elections in November.

“It’s time for women to go to Washington and fix our broken government and that includes a woman at the top. So here’s what I promise, after November 6 I will take a hard look at running for president,” she declared to a standing ovation as seen in an online video.

Warren, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump who has said he intends to seek re-election, shared her plans at a town hall meeting in western Massachusetts. She expressed concern about the nation’s general state of affairs and in particular decried Republicans’ handling of sexual assault accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“I watched 11 men who were too chicken to ask a woman a single question,” she said of the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who relied on outside attorney to question Kavanaugh’s alleged victim, Christine Blasey Ford, at a hearing on Thursday. “I watched powerful men helping a powerful man make it to an even more powerful position.”

Of the president, Warren said, “Let’s face it, Donald Trump is taking this country in the wrong direction … I am worried, down to my bones, about what Donald Trump is doing to our democracy.”