NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Police Were Not Policed By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on August 7th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/hard-to-trust-doj-fbi-cia-without-accountability/

How can Americans now trust the intelligence agencies shown to be corrupt in the very recent past?

No doubt Russia must be watched for its chronic efforts to sow more chaos in American elections — despite Barack Obama’s naïve assertion in 2016 that no entity could possibly ever rig a U.S. election, given the decentralization of state voting.

Lately the heads of four U.S. intelligence and security agencies — Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, FBI Director Chris Wray, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, and National Security Adviser John Bolton — held coordinated White House press conferences to remind America of the dangers of Russian chicanery. Trump, who is prone to conflate documented Russian efforts to meddle and cause chaos with unproven accusations of Trump-Russia collusion, should heed their warnings and beef up U.S. counter-espionage efforts and cyber deterrence.

But why do our intelligence heads seem to feel so exasperated that they’re not getting through to the American people? Why do they need to reassert the immediacy of the Russian threat?

The FBI joined forces with one political campaign to thwart the efforts of the opposing campaign. Has that happened before in American history?

Is it because Trump has poisoned the waters of American espionage and surveillance by his understandable furor over the never-ending Mueller investigation and his perceived downplaying of “Russian meddling”?

Not really.

Consider the larger context.

Most recently, it was disclosed, two years after the fact — and despite the FBI’s kicking-and-screaming refusal to release subpoenaed documents — that the FBI did, as alleged, offer to pay Christopher Steele to dig for dirt on the Trump campaign.

The FBI also knew that Steele was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign to find dirt on Donald Trump. We now also know that the FBI used at least one informant to spy on members of the Trump campaign. In other words, the FBI joined forces with one political campaign to thwart the efforts of the opposing campaign. Has that happened before in American history?

Pause for a minute and examine the recent history of the FBI leadership. The fired former director James Comey likely lied frequently to congressional committees when he claimed that the Steele dossier was not really a primary source for the FISA court writ against Carter Page.

Comey did write an FBI summary about the Clinton email scandal, exonerating Clinton, before he interviewed Hillary Clinton and many of the major figures in that scandal. Comey leaked at least one likely classified document, written on FBI equipment on FBI time, in a successful gambit to get a special counsel appointed, which turned out to be his friend Robert Mueller.

Comey misled a FISA judge by not fully disclosing the full origins of the Steele dossier as a product of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He also deceived a president by briefing him of selected bits of the dossier’s contents, but not informing the president that the source of most of that information was paid by the Clinton campaign.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Elizabeth Warren’s Lie By Rich Lowry

Posted By on August 7th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/elizabeth-warren-lies-about-criminal-justice-system-racism/

Our criminal-justice system is not racist ‘front to back.’

Elizabeth Warren is branching out.

The Massachusetts senator, who has made a career of unfairly maligning bankers and other alleged capitalist malefactors, is now smearing the criminal-justice system, too.

In a speech at a historically black college in New Orleans, she declared that “the hard truth about our criminal justice system: It’s racist . . . I mean front and back.”

Her riff is a sign that the Democrats are going to leaven their lurch toward socialism with a condemnation of America as fundamentally racist. After helping fuel Donald Trump’s rise in 2016 with loose rhetoric about the bigotry of cops, Democrats hope to dislodge him in 2020 with even more sweeping accusations of systematic racism.

The U.S. criminal-justice system is obviously a legitimate topic of debate. The war on drugs has been a blunderbuss mistake, and we should be reconsidering how many people we jail, and how we do it and why. But the contention that U.S. law enforcement is a product of racial hatred is a paranoid lie, from top to bottom, from beginning to end, from front to back.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

South Africa’s Slide President Ramaphosa tries the Zimbabwe and Venezuela way.

Posted By on August 7th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-africas-slide-1533598238

South Africa needs another enlightened leader like Nelson Mandela, but it keeps electing imitations of Robert Mugabe. President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed recently that his government plans to expropriate private property without compensation, following the examples of Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

Mr. Ramaphosa says he wants “land reform” to “unlock economic growth, by bringing more land in South Africa to full use, and enable the productive participation of millions more South Africans in the economy.” In his telling, South Africa’s ills are related to the proportion of whites and blacks tilling the soil, not the economic mismanagement of predecessor Jacob Zuma or the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

Supporters of expropriation claim black South Africans own less than 2% of rural land, and less than 7% of urban land, thanks to apartheid-era policies. But the government’s 2017 land audit used questionable data and underestimated land returned to blacks since the ANC won power in 1994. The Institute of Race Relations estimates black South Africans control 30% to 50% of the country’s land.

Mandela insisted that land reform is best achieved through a “willing buyer, willing seller” principle, as it is in other democracies with a strong rule of law. When polled, the vast majority of blacks prefer cash instead of titles. Many black South Africans have streamed into cities to find jobs and better schools for their children.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Stefan Molyneux The War Against Tommy Robinson

Posted By on August 5th, 2018

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/war-tommy-robinson/

Tommy Robinson was released this week from a British prison after his contempt of court conviction was not merely quashed but scathingly condemned on appeal. Here, with videos and a link to that ruling, is the genesis and gist of England’s disgrace.

Because of restrictions imposed by an English court, this article could not be published in the UK, either in print or on any online forum. In the interests of freedom of speech and the proper rule of law, it was first published on Quadrant Online and again in Quadrant itself. The version below is from our July-August edition
_____________________________________________

The rule of law is fragile, and relies on the self-restraint of the majority. In a just society, the majority obey the law because they believe it represents universal values—moral absolutes. They obey the law not for fear of punishment, but for fear of the self-contempt that comes from doing wrong.

As children, we are told that the law is objective, fair and moral. As we grow up, though, it becomes increasingly impossible to avoid the feeling that the actual law has little to do with the Platonic stories we were told as children. We begin to suspect that the law may in fact—or at least at times—be a coercive mechanism designed to protect the powerful, appease the aggressive, and bully the vulnerable.

The arrest of Tommy Robinson is a hammer-blow to the fragile base of people’s respect for British law. The reality that he could be grabbed off the street and thrown into a dangerous jail—in a matter of hours—is deeply shocking.

Robinson was under a suspended sentence for filming on courthouse property in the past. On May 25, while live-streaming his thoughts about the sentencing of alleged Muslim child rapists, he very consciously stayed away from the court steps, constantly used the word alleged, and checked with the police to ensure that he was not breaking the law.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

‘Go Visit the Frontiers, You Gutless Wonders!’ By Carol Iannone

Posted By on August 5th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/05/go-visit-the-frontiers-you

Tom Wolfe the novelist arrived as modern fiction was going bankrupt. Modernism, the revolution in the arts that took place in the early decades of the 20th century, had delivered all it had to deliver, and was in fact sometimes leaving empty boxes on the curb. The age of iconoclastic landmarks like Ulysses, Metamorphosis, The Magic Mountain, To the Lighthouse, was long past and some of them, such as Ulysses, were looking a little shopworn. The promise of a revolutionary breakthrough in consciousness, of aesthetic transformation and transcendence of life, man, society, was long past, and far from being fulfilled. The image of the writer and artist as sacred figure, the prophet or shaman who led to the depths of experience beyond the ordinary, was growing faint.

Postmodernism had set in, beginning sometime after the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s, bringing in a host of experimental forms–absurdism, fabulism, minimalism, magical realism, metafiction–as Wolfe would detail in his literary manifesto, “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” two years after he had made his fictional debut with the rollicking Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), about race, class, and sex-riven New York City in the 1980s. With such as Gaddis, Pynchon, Doctorow, DeLillo, Beattie, Coover, Carver, Hawkes, Barth, reading had become something of a chore–dry, sullen minimalist works with very little payoff, or maybe big books trying very hard but giving no particular reason to plow through them. (I can read it, a friend said to me of one 800-page number, but why? Truth to tell, though, some of these books did become cult classics, especially with younger men.)

Poetry too, had long gone from the expansive, soul-shattering visions of the likes of T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and William Butler Yeats, who took on important themes and managed to make their own peculiar angle of vision large enough for others to enter. Later poets turned increasingly inward to explorations of the self and subjective experience. We went from hearing vigor in language and haunting lines to increasingly hermetic utterances that escaped any kind of recall. (A reading by John Ashbery that I attended almost finished poetry for me.)

In the other arts too, we were long past the exciting forays of the early modern period—Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Brancusi. Art lovers were left trying to squeeze rapture out of such specimens as Andre Serrano’s “Piss Christ,” Richard Serra’s gigantic, rusty “Tilted Arc,” and Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party,” consisting of large dinner plates delicately painted to represent the private parts of famous women, reverently displayed around a large dining room table. As for music, the Stravinskys and Coplands were no more, and one was always wary of having some frightful contemporary piece sprung on one, usually before the intermission at a concert, with the possibility of escape foreclosed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Where is Carter Page’s Exoneration by the FBI? By Julie Kelly

Posted By on August 5th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/04/where-is-carter-pages-

Two years ago this month, President Obama’s FBI began investigating Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Four campaign associates were targeted: campaign manager Paul Manafort; Trump’s foreign policy advisor and Obama’s former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn; and foreign policy aides George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

The timing was not coincidental. Polling in late July 2016 showed the presidential race tightening following a relatively successful Republican National Convention and a messy Democratic National Convention marked by intraparty strife. The FBI was still under fire after James Comey exonerated Hillary Clinton from any wrongdoing related to her private email server.

Although the reigning political wisdom at the time was that Hillary Clinton would easily defeat Trump in November, top FBI officials wanted a backup plan in the event their favored candidate lost. In August 2016, then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly met with lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok and FBI counsel Lisa Page to concoct an “insurance policy” in case of a Trump victory.

And so began the first known federal investigation into a sitting president’s political foe and potential successor in U.S. history.

No Charges
Two years later, three of the four original suspects remain in legal trouble. Paul Manafort is now on trial and being held in solitary confinement, indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in two separate jurisdictions for charges unrelated to alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Michael Flynn, Trump’s short-lived national security advisor who resigned after being set-up by Obama holdovers, is awaiting sentencing for pleading guilty to one count of lying to federal agents. And George Papadopoulos is scheduled to be sentenced next month on one charge of making false statements to federal investigators.

The only man still not charged with any crime is Carter Page. Two years later, the Trump campaign volunteer who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russians is a free man. And the FBI has yet to explain why.

Page—an Eagle Scout and Naval Academy graduate—arguably has suffered the greatest personal price. After helping the FBI nab a Russian foreign agent in 2016, Page suddenly became an FBI target when then-candidate Trump announced Page would serve as one of his foreign policy advisors. (Page has never met Trump and was not paid by the campaign for his work.)

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Organic Industry Is Lying to You Normally a strict regulator, the FDA gives advertisers a complete pass. By Henry I. Miller

Posted By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-organic-industry-is-lying-to-you-1533496699

In the mold of “Mad Men’s” Don Draper, clever ad execs know a thing or two about manipulating consumer ignorance, confusion and even fear to sell a product.

Nowhere is this truer than modern food advertising, where dubious health claims and questionable scientific assertions abound. The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to police such deceptive practices, as it sometimes does with ridiculous zeal: Witness the FDA’s warning letter sent to a Massachusetts bakery for including “love” in its ingredient list.

But when it comes to the $47-billion-a-year organic industry, the FDA gives a complete pass to blatantly false and deceptive advertising claims. Consider the Whole Foods website, which explicitly claims that organic foods are grown “without toxic or persistent pesticides.” In fact, organic farmers rely on synthetic and natural pesticides to grow their crops, just as conventional farmers do, and organic products can contain numerous synthetic as well as natural chemicals. As observed by UC Berkeley biochemist Bruce Ames and his colleagues in 1990, “99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves.”

Pesticides are by definition toxic, and many organic pesticides pose significant environmental and human health risks. One is copper sulfate, a widely used broad-spectrum organic pesticide that persists in soil and is the most common residue found in organic food. The European Union determined that copper sulfate may cause cancer and intended to ban it, but backed off because organic farmers don’t have any viable alternative.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard’s Education in Discrimination A lawsuit is revealing the secrets of race in admissions.

Posted By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvards-education-in-discrimination-1533502018

The Trump Administration in July withdrew Obama-era guidance that gave colleges a wink and a nod to racially discriminate. This means that colleges like Harvard that use racial preferences in admissions will receive more legal scrutiny, and the examination should be instructive.

Between 2011 and 2016, the Obama Education Department issued seven notices advising colleges how they may legally promote racial diversity. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits racial discrimination by institutions receiving federal funds. But the Supreme Court has held that colleges may consider race in admissions as long it isn’t the “decisive” factor. Quotas and point systems are forbidden.

The Obama department advised colleges to consider race as part of what it called an “individualized, holistic review of all applicants.” Colleges also were urged to consider race-neutral alternatives, but that they need not be adopted if they are “unworkable.” In other words, it’s the thought that counts. Many colleges took the guidance as cover to discriminate.

Harvard’s practices will be the first to be examined under this new spotlight. Students for Fair Admissions has sued the school for discriminating against Asian-American applicants and unconstitutionally favoring other minority groups. The case hasn’t gone to trial, but the plaintiff group’s legal filings based on discovery and depositions are revealing the secrets of Harvard’s use of race.

Consider Harvard’s “holistic” admissions review. Applicants are rated on a scale of one to six on academics, extracurricular activities, athletics and highly subjective “personal” criteria. Admissions officers also assign applicants an overall score.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How British Jailers Abused Tommy Robinson The Muslim grooming gang whistleblower finally wins his freedom. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270920/how-british-jailers-abused-tommy-robinson-matthew-vadum

The jailers of newly freed human rights activist Tommy Robinson deliberately subjected him to inhumane treatment behind bars in England, according to independent journalist Ezra Levant of the Canadian news website, TheRebel.media.

The goal of the authorities seems to have been to silence Robinson, perhaps permanently.

“Tommy has endured two months as a genuine political prisoner, and I say that thoughtfully,” Levant said. “I don’t want to throw around the word political prisoner. Britain is still a great liberal democracy, but not in the case of Tommy Robinson, they weren’t.”

Robinson’s lawyers, Carson Kaye of London, released a statement celebrating his release: “The rule of law and the right to a fair hearing are fundamental to every individual and this ruling [is] an example of the procedural safeguards of our system, and its potential for protecting every citizen equally.”

Robinson, a tanning salon owner and anti-Islamization activist whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, was taken into custody May 25 when he reported outside Leeds Crown Court. Robinson had been trying to bring transparency to an opaque legal system distrusted by the public. The 35-year-old married father of three used his smartphone to live-stream on Facebook the arrival of accused rapists on trial for acts allegedly committed while being part of a so-called Muslim grooming gang.

The filming of the alleged pedophile rapists infuriated trial judge Geoffrey Marson Q.C. because he had imposed a ban on publishing news from their criminal proceeding. Within five hours Robinson had been railroaded and sentenced to 13 months in prison.

But on Wednesday a judicial panel headed by Baron Burnett of Maldon, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, quashed Robinson’s contempt of court conviction and ordered him released on bail. The Court of Appeal ordered that Robinson be released pending a fresh trial on the contempt charges before a different judge.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Britain Welcomes Radicals – Again and Again by Douglas Murray

Posted By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12801/britain-radicals-rehman

How expert are these two clerics at ‘interfaith relations’? Well, they are so good that their main credential is their enthusiastic support for the murderer of somebody accused of ‘blasphemy’.

Despite criticism from Shahbaz Taseer… the UK government had no problem allowing into the UK these two men who, as Shahbaz Taseer said, ‘teach murder and hate’.

In the past year, the UK has banned a fair number of people from entering the country. It has, for example, barred the Canadian activist and blogger Lauren Southern. It has also banned the Austrian activist and ‘identitarian’ Martin Sellner. Whatever anyone’s thoughts on either of these individuals, it is not possible to claim that either has ever addressed a rally of thousands of people which they have used to extol a murderer… Yet Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman has done these things – and yet has been allowed into the UK three years in a row.

It is more than a year since the UK suffered three Islamist terrorist attacks in quick succession. It is also more than a year since the Prime Minister, Theresa May, stood on the steps of Downing Street and announced that ‘enough is enough’.

Yet the striking aspect of the last year has been how little has changed.

Consider, for instance, the lax controls on extremist preachers that the UK had in place in 2016. As reported here at the time, in the summer of that year, two Pakistani clerics performed a tour of the UK. Their seven-week roadshow took in numerous UK hotspots including Rochdale, Rotherham, Oldham and the Prime Minister’s own constituency of Maidenhead. The two clerics — Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman — began their tour by visiting the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, at Lambeth Palace for a meeting on ‘interfaith relations’.