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Why You Should Care about World War I By Patrick K. O’Donnell see note please

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/remembering-battle-of-belleau-wood-world-war-one/

The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia is a half hour drive from D.C. and has magnificent dioramas and narratives and pictures of the Great War…..rsk

The Doughboys at the Battle of Belleau Wood in France exemplified American valor and established the brilliant reputation of the U.S. Marine Corps.

This summer marks the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Belleau Wood, which changed the course of World War I and gained the U.S. Marines their honored reputation. With a few exceptions, major media outlets have neglected this centennial.

By contrast, the 74th anniversary of D-Day, falling during the same time period, was covered by broadcast, print, and online outlets across the country. It’s more than appropriate that we give the D-Day troops their due, but it’s a shame that the Doughboys who fought in the Great War have not been similarly remembered. They were part of one of the most heroic, innovative, and self-sacrificing generations of Americans. Their struggles and triumphs reshaped the world as we know it. To this day the consequences of World War I are still costing Americans their lives, and the efforts of the Doughboys at the Battle of Belleau Wood are emblematic of the war as a whole.

In the spring of 1918, the United States was still sending troops to Europe and organizing them into the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Germany, then led by Kaiser Wilhelm II, saw a narrow window of opportunity to annihilate the Allies before the U.S. could fully deploy. Following the revolution, Russia ceded the Eastern Front, leaving the Germans free to concentrate nearly all their military might on the Western Front.

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After ISIS Claims Credit for Toronto Attack, NYT Reporter Says Killer Could Not Have Been Pro-ISIS By Patrick Poole

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/after-isis-claims-credit-for-toronto-attack-new-york-times-reporter-says-killer-could-not-be-pro-isis/

A shooting in the Greektown area of Toronto Monday evening killed two and injured 13 more victims:

#BREAKING: Toronto police have identified the 10-year-old girl killed in the Danforth shooting as Julianna Kozis of Markham.

CP24 has learned the identity of one of the victims killed in last night’s mass shooting on the Danforth: 18-year-old Reese Fallon.

BREAKING: Canadian officials identify suspect in Toronto mass shooting as Faisal Hussain of Toronto.

Early on Wednesday, ISIS claimed credit for Monday’s attack, calling Hussain a “soldier of the Islamic State”:

But later in the day, New York Times reporter Rukmini Callamachi claimed that because Hussain killed himself immediately following the attack, he could not possibly have been inspired by ISIS:

Now, alert readers might be a bit confused here. Not only did ISIS claim credit for the attack, as seen in the earlier tweet, but Callamachi herself had reported it.

Strangely, Callamachi was on Canadian TV giving an interview earlier today following the ISIS claim of credit acknowledging that, at least from ISIS’s point of view, they were praising Hussain for responding to their call for supporters to conduct attacks at home to terrorize Western countries:

The phrasing that refers to responding to calls to target coalition countries, that refers to a famous speech put out in 2014 by ISIS’s then spokesman Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, where they called on people who could not travel to the Islamic State who were still back home in Western countries and elsewhere in the world to carry out attacks in situ, in their own communities, anyway they could. It was in that speech that they spoke about using cars to run people over, even using rocks to use them to smash the heads of their enemies.

So what the phrasing indicates is that from ISIS’ perspective this was a man who was most likely self-radicalized, who was inspired by their propaganda, and not somebody who actually traveled to Syria, or took more concrete direction from the group. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Facebook Stands to Lose Tens of BILLIONS in Dozens of Lawsuits By Paula Bolyard

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/facebook-lawsuits-loom-tens-of-billions-on-the-line/

Facebook stocks plunged precipitously on Thursday after the company’s earnings report showed they missed expectations on revenue and that the social media platform’s monthly users are down significantly. All of this comes in the wake of ongoing scandals, including charges of data misuse and anti-conservative bias.

“During a conference call Wednesday, Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Wehner predicted bad news for the second half, and the company’s shares immediately began a drastic retreat in the extended session,” Marketwatch reported on Thursday.

According to Reuters, “Facebook shares dived 18.6 percent, set for its biggest one-day percentage drop ever, after the social media giant said profit margins would plummet for years due to costs to improve privacy safeguards and slowing usage in its big advertising markets.”

But stock prices aren’t the only problems facing the beleaguered social media behemoth. The company is facing massive fines and possible government intervention as lawsuits pile up in the U.S. and around the world. In fact, Facebook is facing more than three dozen class-action lawsuits over Cambridge Analytica privacy breaches alone. The looming legal nightmare is so significant that the company felt the need to include a note about it in their quarterly SEC report:

Beginning on March 20, 2018, multiple putative class actions and derivative actions were filed in state and federal courts in the United States and elsewhere against us and certain of our directors and officers alleging violations of securities laws, breach of fiduciary duties, and other causes of action in connection with the misuse of certain data by a developer that shared such data with third parties […] the events surrounding this misuse of data became the subject of U.S. Federal Trade Commission and other government inquiries in the United States, Europe, and other jurisdictions. Any such inquiries could subject us to substantial fines and costs, divert resources and the attention of management from our business, or adversely affect our business. [Emphasis added]

Here are a few of the dozens of lawsuits Facebook is facing:
1. Facebook accused of using ad tools to discriminate against older job seekers

PJM’s Phil Baker wrote in May that “A potential class-action lawsuit claims that companies are using Facebook’s ad creation tools to create ads for job hunters that discriminate by age, which is against federal law. The lawsuit is not against Facebook, but against a number of companies using their tools to weed out older job hunters.” CONTINUE AT SITE

POLITICS Comments turned off

Howie Carr: Liz Warren to join tribe of losers ‘Pocahontas’ next in line to fail on the trail

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/howie_carr/2018/07/howie_carr_liz_warren_to_join_tribe_of_losers

Psst: Mitt Romney was the Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007…..rsk

One thing the Democrats can do to assure Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020: Nominate somebody from Massachusetts. Virginia used to be called the Mother of Presidents. Massachusetts is the Mother of Presidential Losers.

I mention this today in the wake of a sycophantic, fawning cover story in New York magazine declaring that the fake Indian, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is now “the de facto leader of the Democratic party.”

To which Trump has got to be saying, Dirty Harry-like, “Go ahead, make my day.”

What is it with the national Democrats’ fascination with Massachusetts?

Look at the record: Ted Kennedy, Mike Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, John Kerry. Fool me once shame on you, fool me four times, five times … what’s up with that?

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Polling could be missing reality, again By Mark Penn

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/398940-polling-could-be-missing-reality-again

The biggest “fake news” story of the last few years was that Donald Trump had almost no chance of being elected president. The entire pundit-polling-news establishment (including myself) was wrong, and the expectation was that these institutions would recalibrate their coverage to reflect a true picture of the country. They made an enormous miscalculation and they would, of course, make changes.

Almost two years later, very little has changed in polling and analysis at major institutions and news media. If anything, the polling has drifted even further from reality when you look at the questions being asked and, more importantly, the questions not being asked. You don’t need polls to see the America you live in. You need polls to understand the part of America you don’t know, don’t see, and don’t understand.
I believe that, in 2016, many of the national election polls were basically accurate, depicting a fairly close race, but the analysis of them was sophomoric, failing to understand the electoral college power of the unique coalition Trump amassed. His daily Midwest rallies were dismissed as curiosities of a desperate candidate with no real chance of winning. Boy, were they wrong.

This disconnect could be happening all over again. Take a look, for example, at the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll for July. It’s very professional and a generally accurate poll. Look at what it found this month: Trump’s approval rating edged up 1 point and his “strong approval” went up 3 points. His personal image improved several points. The congressional horserace closed 4 points in the direction of Republicans.

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Media Gaslighting Can’t Hide Fact Trump Campaign Was Spied On

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/26/media-gaslighting-cant-hide-fact-trump-campaign-was-spied-on/

After a year of alarming revelations, the media are still more interested in proving the Trump campaign treasonously colluded with Russia than wrestling with the fact that the FBI spied on a presidential campaign.

On Saturday night, heavily redacted copies of the FBI’s application to wiretap Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page were released. The portion of the 412-page document that was not redacted supported the claims of Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), as well as those made by the majority of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The senators and the representatives had issued reports alleging that the FBI used an unverified Clinton campaign document to secure a wiretap against an American citizen, that the application for the wiretap used circular reporting and lacked verification for its central claims, and that it made materially false claims related to the source’s credibility.

President Trump tweeted triumphantly and hyperbolically about what the documents showed regarding the FBI’s behavior toward his campaign. Whatever you think about Trump’s reaction to the release of the FISA application, the media reaction to the story was disingenuous and even more hyperbolic than the president’s tweets. After a year of continuous and alarming revelations, the media are still more interested in proving the Trump campaign treasonously colluded with Russia than wrestling with the fact that the FBI spied on a presidential campaign, and used dubious partisan political research to justify their surveillance.

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A Month of Multiculturalism in France: by Soeren Kern

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12765/a-month-of-multiculturalism-in-france-june-2018

“Cultural anti-Judaism from the Maghreb has been imported in the luggage of some immigrants…. It has often been aggravated by… the image of the man and the father, at the bottom of the social ladder… From there, a focus of resentment on ‘France’ and ‘the Jews,’ whose success, real or imagined, appeared to some as an additional ‘injustice’ and an affront to the ancient hierarchies.” — Georges Bensoussan, Causeur.

The Christianophobia Observatory, a Paris-based Roman Catholic non-profit organization that tracks attacks against Christians, reported 128 incidents of church vandalism or other anti-Christian attacks in France during the first five months of 2018.

“I am opposed to the institutionalization of an Islam of France. If the state interferes with religion, then it is an infringement of the 1905 law on the separation of church and state.” — Bruno Retaillea, Chairman of the Republicans in the Senate, opposing the creation of a French Islam.

June 1. In an interview with the magazine L’Obs, Marwan Muhammad, one of the leading Muslim activists in France, vowed to oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to reorganize Islam in France: “Macron can do his own thing, we do ours. He can name a great imam, he can even to pray behind him if he wants to. That does not mean that he will receive the approval of the people.”

June 2. In an interview with the newspaper Le Monde, the chief chaplain of the Muslim faith in the French armed forces, Abdelkader Arbi, called for the establishment of a military seminary to train the next generation of Muslim chaplains. The course of study would be at the undergraduate level and would be full-time for a period of three years.

June 3. The managers of a Carrefour hypermarket in Chambourcy complied with Muslim demands to remove Israeli dates from the store’s “Ramadan department.” Customers complained that the presence of Israeli products at the store was “an affront to Muslim customers.”

June 4. Police in Paris evacuated around 1,000 migrants from two makeshift camps in the city, five days after another 1,000 were taken to temporary lodgings. The operation began at dawn at a camp along the Canal St Martin northeast of the city center where an estimated 550 mainly Afghan migrants were staying. Another 450 people were evacuated from a camp to the north at Porte de la Chapelle. The St Martin Canal is near the site of a sprawling former camp by the Stalingrad Metro stop, which was cleared, only to spring up again several times last year.

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Is Portugal Becoming a Bastion of Neo-Marxism? by Tiago S. Freitas

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12749/portugal-marxism

It is time for the people of Portugal to take a break from their concern over soccer scores to wake up to the dangerous attempt — within their own parliament — to turn their lovely sunny country into a bastion of neo-Marxism.

Since the dramatic October 4, 2015 legislative election in Portugal, which resulted in the fall of the newly-formed conservative government after less than two weeks, the country has been run by a far-left coalition.

On one hand, this is not surprising, given Portugal’s long-standing socialist tradition; like many European countries, it has managed to balance a free-market economy with heavy government taxation and powerful labor unions.

On the other hand, the ruling coalition now has the contribution of a toxic partner — the “Bloco de Esquerda” (“Left Bloc”) — which has been demanding implementation of its extreme social, economic and foreign policy agenda in exchange for political support. Since its formation in 1999, through the convergence of the neo-Marxists, Trotskyists, feminists and environmentalists, this bloc entered the scene like a political Trojan Horse, and gradually took root in academia and other cultural institutions, to the point at which it now wields actual parliamentary power.

This power has taken the form of an intensification of a neo-Marxist agenda, ranging from a near-successful attempt to legalize euthanasia, disproportional defense of animal rights, gender modification for anyone 16 and older, and a series of draconian anti-private-sector measures. Yet, not a word from Portuguese media platforms.

While other European countries are at a crossroads, seeking to regain control of their social structure and borders following years of extreme liberalism, Portugal is backtracking — falling prey to a group that organizes youth camps with indoctrination seminars, and holds conferences on topics such as: “Private Property is Theft: The Need for the Socialization of Productive Assets,” and “Boycott Israel; Free Palestine.”

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Close the Birthright Citizenship Loophole By Christopher Roach

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/26/close-the-birthright-citizenship-

The law is full of loopholes. If you do not first secure two witnesses, your last will and testament may not be valid. If a policeman fails in reading the Miranda warning, a criminal’s confession may be thrown out and kept away from the jury. And, through the lawbreaking and evasive maneuvers by their illegal alien parents, young children, through no merit (or choice) of their own, may end up with the very beneficial acquisition of U.S. citizenship.

Birthright citizenship began as an unintended consequence of the language of the 14th Amendment. This beneficent amendment was ratified in the wake of the Civil War to address the former Confederate states’ restrictive “black codes,” which limited the rights of the newly freed slaves. Such laws included provisions limiting the right to bear arms, to travel, to make contracts, and much else, often using roundabout maneuvers, such as racially neutral language that based rights on whether one’s grandparents had a particular right.

Thus, the amendment states broadly, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The amendment goes on to protect all such citizens’ “privileges and immunities,” the right to “life, liberty, and property,” and “equal protection of the laws.”

In other words, this was not an immigration amendment, but rather a law aimed at addressing the particular obstacles that faced the recently freed slaves. While tortured readings of the 14th Amendment have also brought us such abominations as an abstract “right to privacy,” which in turn led to the right to abortion and gay marriage, on the question of citizenship, there is at least a debatable question arising from the text of the amendment itself.

What the Court Has (and Has Not) Said

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Reforming NATO Is the Only Way to Save It By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on July 26th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/26/reforming-nato-is-the-only-way

Donald Trump recently ignited yet another firestorm by hedging when asked whether protecting the newest NATO member, tiny Montenegro, might be worth risking a war.

Of course, the keystone of NATO was always the idea that all members, strong and weak, are in theory equal. A military attack against one member, under Article V of the NATO charter, meant an attack on all members.

Such mutual defense is the essence of collective deterrence. An aggressor backs off when he realizes his intended target has lots of powerful friends willing to defend it.

But what happens when an alliance becomes so large and so diverse that not all of its members still share similar traditions, values, agendas or national security threats?

NATO’s original European members considered themselves kindred neighbors under the nuclear umbrella of the United States.

With the inclusion of West Germany in 1955, NATO’s original mission was altered somewhat. It was no longer tasked just with keeping the United States in and the Soviet Union out, but also with raising Germany up rather than keeping it down.

NATO collective defense was designed to offer breathing space against the superior forces of the Soviet Red Army—until the United States could bring in reinforcements or threaten to use its superior nuclear forces against would-be aggressors.

The alliance worked because the United States accepted that Europe needed American help to deter enemies in order to avoid repeats of the disasters of 1914 and 1939. With the exception of Turkey, the older members of NATO were generally seen as sharing the geographical space of Western Europe.