IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

NYC Enlists Shop Keepers, Not ICE, To Combat Transnational Gangs New lows in immigration lunacy.

Posted By on July 31st, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270894/nyc-enlists-shop-keepers-not-ice-combat-michael-cutler
Today we will examine a confluence of events and connect the dots to expose hypocrisy and dispel the myths and lies spewed by immigration anarchists.

Let’s begin with a July 18, 2018 report from the NY Post newspaper stating that the state of New York is suing the Justice Department over immigration laws. According to this report both the City of New York and the State of New York are suing the U.S. Justice Department to stop the DOJ from blocking four million dollars in federal funds for not complying with regulations that require that the city and other recipients of federal grants provide notice to the Department of Homeland Security at least 48 hours in advance of the date and time of any inmate for whom the DHS had requested such an advance notice, and to provide DHS with access to inmates in city-maintained detention facilitates when DHS deems them to be “persons of interest.”

U.S. News & World Report also published an Associated Press news report about the same story but also noting that in addition to New York City and New York State, five other states, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, Massachusetts and Virginia had also filed lawsuits on July 18, 2018 in the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan.

The total amount of money being withheld by the DOJ is twenty-five million dollars of which four million would go to New York City.

The news report included this excerpt which quoted New York City’s mayor:

“Our message is clear: the Trump Administration’s actions are illegal and morally bankrupt,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a release.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Netflix to Offer Louis Farrakhan Documentary Next Month By Jack Crowe

Posted By on July 31st, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/louis-farrakhan-netflix-documentary-coming/

Netflix will begin offering a film chronicling the life of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on August 1 despite the activist’s penchant for resorting to anti-semitic and anti-gay slurs.

The documentary, The Honourable Minister Louis Farrakhan: My Life’s Journey Through Music, was produced in 2014 by Farrakhan’s son and chronicles the minister’s life as an activist and fringe political figure.

The documentary will be released on August 1, according to a list of newly licensed films Netflix released this month. Farrakhan teased the Netflix release in a Monday tweet.

My official @netflix announcement will be forthcoming later today. #LetsChangeTheWorld pic.twitter.com/R1Gr5Wd7Yl

— MINISTER FARRAKHAN (@LouisFarrakhan) July 30, 2018

Bottom of Form

Farrakhan began his career as a civil-rights activist in the 1960’s and later gained notoriety for helping organize the first Million Man March in Washington, D.C. in 1995. But he has been criticized for frequent bigoted statements against Jews, gays, and others. He routinely blames the socio-economic plight of African-Americans on a cabal of wealthy Jewish financiers and criticizes homosexual “immorality” in harsh terms. As a result, a number of liberal politicians and activists have been forced to distance themselves from him.

Most recently, Women’s March co-founder Tamika Mallory was roundly criticized by political opponents and allies alike after she attended Farrakhan’s Saviour’s Day address in Chicago. During the speech, which Mallory praised on social media, Farrakhan railed against Jewish people, calling them “satanic,” and suggesting that they are responsible for the socioeconomic disparity between races in America.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Progressive Regression By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on July 31st, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/30/progressive

Donald Trump has certainly changed the rules of presidential behavior, through his nonstop campaign rallies, tweets, and press conferences. What his critics call lowering the bar of presidential decorum by unfettered and often crude invective, Trump dubs the “new presidential.”

His style has become a sort of “don’t-tread-on-me” combativeness. In truth, Trump at home and abroad is mostly retaliatory. His theory seems to be that no slight should go unanswered. When Trump retorts in kind or trumps the original attack, he believes he adds yet another brick to his wall of deterrence—and exposes the sometimes dormant and disguised irrational hatred of the Left.

But what the Left loses in its slugfests with Trump are some once-supposed cherished leftist principles, justified by the short-term advantage of nullifying the Trump agenda.

Indeed, it is eerie that almost all the canons of progressive orthodoxy no longer apply. And they will no longer be taken seriously after Trump is long gone. Certainly, those lost principles will be impossible to reassert when Democrats return to power and seek sanctuary in the very ideas they have now so utterly trashed.

Liberals, who now warn of Trump’s “war on the press” long ago excused Eric Holder’s monitoring of the Associated Press reporters and Fox News’s James Rosen. And they had no problem with John Brennan lying under oath when he claimed the Obama CIA had not monitored the computers of Senate staffers (he would lie brazenly again under oath about drone collateral damage and his role in seeding the Steele dossier).

Likewise, they snoozed after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress in his denial of government surveillance of U.S. citizens. Both were seen at the time to be useful liars. Their partisanship and exemption from any consequences for past lying under oath led to lucrative cable news gigs—proof, as it were, of their innate Trump hatred. Their legacy is that lying under oath now is not a sin, much less illegal.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Is There a Cure for the Modern University? By David Solway *****

Posted By on July 31st, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/is_there_a_cure_for_the_modern_university.html

So much has gone wrong with the modern university that one scarcely knows where to begin. Innumerable books have been written on the subject, from Hilda Neatby’s 1953 So Little for the Mind to Michael Rectenwald’s 2018 Springtime for Snowflakes. Articles abound in the thousands. As a former laborer in the educational vineyards, I have attempted a modest contribution to the literature, consisting of three books and dozens of essays and articles, to no particular avail. The academic outlook continues to degenerate, following an agenda that seems to be unstoppable, as if programmed by some ideological Doomsday Machine.

The reasons for the precipitous decline in academic rigor, standards, and outcomes are many and have been thoroughly canvassed. It may be worth bulleting some of them here to suggest the scope of the problem:

the emergence of a therapeutic culture absolving the individual from the demanding and sacrificial pursuit of excellence, valorizing feeling over thought and leading to an observable dumbing down of student capacity and performance. As Philip Rieff wrote in his magisterial The Triumph of the Therapeutic, “the cry of ‘one feels’ [has become] the caveat of the therapeutic.”

political factionalism accentuated by the rise of the postmodern left more interested in indoctrination than scholarship.

the scandal of affirmative action based on criteria of race and sex coupled with quotas placed on qualified white male and Asian students – a numerus clausus rationalized by an ethos of guilt reparation.

equity hiring protocols, the professional counterpart of affirmative action, favoring women, blacks, and indigenous candidates regardless of discipline-specific competence. In Rectenwald’s words, such “blatant tokenism in hiring and promotion jeopardizes the integrity of higher education.”

the incursion of gender politics and the social justice movement into the academic “space” where it has no business being.

the curtailing of academic freedom, which, as Frank Furedi writes in What’s Happened to the University?, has been “devalued through the sanctification of other values” – coercive regulation of conduct, speech codes, politically correct decrees against giving offense, sexual policing, etc.

opening the gates to a vast and intellectually unprepared student clientele in part for reasons of subprime pseudo-justice – everyone deserves a university education irrespective of native ability – and in part for crass monetary purposes – prohibitive tuition fees and per student government grants. This latter goes hand in hand with the industrialization of the university as a corporate enterprise seeking profit rather than truth.

the transformation of a reading culture into a visual and digital culture, rendering students progressively incapable of mastering the nuances, complexities, and semantic rules of written language as well as the habit of, like, coherent, like, conversation. Like, I kid you not, dude!

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Does Diversity Really Unite Us? Citizenship and Immigration see note please

Posted By on July 31st, 2018

Janet Levy Ross writes:

“In Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College, Dr. Erler provides a comprehensive treatment of “diversity,” its pitfalls and implications for the perpetuation of our constitutional republic. (Long; but a very worthwhile read).The liberal bleeding hearts are the first to censure America when irresponsible and neglectful parents break the law to drag their children across our border. Clearly, this misplaced blame serves their anti-constitutional agenda for the “radical transformation of America.” Unfortunately, this meme has gained traction amongst many Republicans.”

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 11, 2018, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Colorado Springs.

President Trump’s zero-tolerance policy for illegal border crossers has provoked a hysterical reaction from Democrats, establishment Republicans, the progressive-liberal media, Hollywood radicals, and the deep state. What particularly motivated the ire of these Trump-haters was the fact that the zero-tolerance policy would require the separation of parents and children at the border. The hysteria was, of course, completely insincere and fabricated, given that the policy of separating children and parents was nothing new—it had been a policy of the Obama and Bush administrations as well.

Furthermore, where is the compassion for the thousands of American children who are separated from their parents every year as a result of arrests and convictions for non-violent crimes? Many of those arrested are single mothers whose infants become wards of the government until their mothers complete their sentences. No hysteria or effusive compassion is elicited by these separations, confirming that the object of the hysteria surrounding illegal border crossers is to force open borders on the nation under the guise of compassion for children.

President Trump’s preferred solution for ending the influx of illegal immigrants and providing border security is a wall; it is also the preferred solution of the American people. Zero tolerance is an interim policy that—if enforced—will help deter illegal crossers. The hysteria provoked by zero tolerance could have been predicted, but its magnitude and sheer insanity are almost breathtaking. Some prominent constitutional scholars have gone so far as to argue that the government has no constitutional authority to control the border. And this, which seems almost beyond hysteria, from the elite intellectual class that should be most immune to hysteria!

In the meantime, a Federal District Court judge in Southern California has discovered a substantive due process right guaranteeing the right to “family integrity” lurking in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and has ordered all children reunited with their illegal immigrant parents. Obviously the judge expects the parents to be released from incarceration to join their children, but the Trump administration seems determined to keep parents and children together in detention centers until legal proceedings determine their fate.

More than a century ago, the Supreme Court announced what was considered the settled sense of the matter when it remarked: “It is an accepted maxim of international law . . . and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within [a sovereign nation’s] dominions, or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe.” This view was reaffirmed in the recent Supreme Court decision, handed down on June 26, that upheld Trump’s travel ban on foreign nationals from eight countries, six of which have majority Muslim populations.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Patriotism: The Secret of Trump’s Success By Karin McQuillan

Posted By on July 31st, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/patriotism_the_secret_of_trumps_success.html

The driving force behind Trump’s winning for America is his powerful patriotism. Patriotism is a virtue that our politicians talk about a lot, in utterly empty ways. Many Democrats think it is a vice. The left wing of the Democratic Party mistakes it for white nationalism. Trump lives American patriotism. It is the reason he ran for president and the reason he won. He knows we are a great country.

Trump recognizes and is comfortable with power – his personal power, America’s power. He does not think power is toxic. He thinks American and presidential power is wonderful and meant to be used for our common, national good.

Our president loves to build. He used to build big apartment and hotel towers with his name on them. Now he is building up America, because he loves America. President Trump’s patriotism has these two equal parts: a strong economy and a strong military. His eye is always on the prize of jobs and security.

Patriotism overflows in his speech on achieving a quarter of 4.1% growth for the economy and the return of fallen heroes’ remains from North Korea.

In everything we do, in every action we take, we are fighting for loyal, hardworking, patriotic citizens of our blessed nation. We’re making our country great again. We’re respected again all over the world. Our military will soon be stronger than it’s ever been, by far.

Unlike his political rivals, President Trump wants to use our full power. We do not need to be intimidated by anybody – not China, not the E.U., not Russia, not Iran, not terrorists. We are the powerhouse. Trump seeks to create win-win situations, but he will not compromise on American interests. If someone is going to lose, it is going to be the other side, not we.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Pastor Brunson, Trump’s America, and Ankara’s Hypocrisy… by Gerald A. Honigman

Posted By on July 31st, 2018

http://q4j-middle-east.com

The headline for the Bizpac Review mailing for July 30th read, “Turkish President Erdogan Warns Trump…”

Before going any further, I’ve valued the American and NATO relationship with the Turks too…the Turkish Straits, the Russian bogeyman, and so forth. But, at what price?

The current dispute is over the demand that Washington issued that Ankara release American Pastor Andrew Brunson, imprisoned since 2016, who had a small church in Turkey that Turks accuse of supporting “terrorists–i.e. especially Kurds, who’ve done most of America’s fighting against ISIS and other Jihadis. They refuse to accept that they’re really just “Mountain Turks,” as Ankara renamed them after also outlawing their language and culture, and have forcibly reacted against their bloody subjugators.

Now, if this doesn’t sound familiar, think about what happened to some two million or more Christian Armenians and Assyrians, and others who, like those (Muslim) Kurds above (some 22 million just in Turkey alone, 20 to 25 % of the population), dared to suggest that they too had their own pre-Turkish (and pre-Arab) invasion identities, let alone rights and aspirations in the age of nationalism as well.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Communism Is as Socialism Does (and Vice Versa) by: Diana West

Posted By on July 31st, 2018

http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3769/Communism-Is-as-Socialism-Does-and-Vice-Versa.aspx

They argue and split hairs, they fight and break heads, they work together and destroy liberty because they all travel to the same soul-crushing destination. As far as liberty-loving anti-communists are concerned, communists and socialists — and “democractic socialists,” Fabians, progressives, Alinskyites (not to mention most Democrats and an awful lot of Republicans), etc. — believe in the same centrally planned, varyingly totalitarian vision for America that the founding fathers would have had to declare independence from all over again.

To that point of ideological convergence, a couple of quotations

The first is from Rene Wormser, a renowned lawyer specializing in estate planning and taxation who served admirably as the general counsel of the Reece committee, the second of two 1950s congressional committees investigating the Marxist/socialist/communist/progressive/etc./etc./etc. subversion of the great American foundations, which, of course, undergirded the subversion of our educational institutions.

Reflecting on both committees’ work, Wormser wrote the following on pp. 177-178 of his extremely important book, Foundations:

Socialist Penetration

The two recent Congressional investigations were largely concerned with “subversion.” The Cox Committee interpreted this term to include only international communism of the Stalinist brand and organized fascism. The Reece Committee, in the course of its work, came to give the term broader or deeper meaning. Neither investigation established sharply, however, the characteristics of Communist activity which would be clearly held to be subversive. In the public mind, the term “subversion” is generally confined to Moscow-directed Communist activity, or that of domestic Communists allied in an international conspiracy. The emphasis on a search for organized Communist penetration of foundations absorbed much of the energy of the investigators and detracted somewhat from the efficacy of their general inquiry into “subversion.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Peter O’Brien Snake Oil in a 26% Solution

Posted By on July 30th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2018/07/whitewashing-pain-ahead-26-solution/

For argument’s sake, accept that global warming is more than fanciful algorithms and careerism. Now wonder how Australia will ever make its 2030 targets, given the energy sector represents only about a quarter of our emissions. Conclusion: there’s far more ruinous stupidity yet to be revealed.

As Australia’s contribution to the Paris Agreement’s aim of limiting global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels, the Turnbull government has gallantly committed to reducing our CO2 emissions by 26%-to-28% of 2005 levels by 2030. It is important to note that we are already at 0.8C warming so we, the world that is, has only got 1.2C to play with. We claim that we only contribute 1.3% of global emissions so, logically, our aim should presumably be to chip in at least 0.016C of cooling.

So somewhere in our great bureaucracy there must be a calculation that shows that reducing our total emissions by 26% (or 155MtCO2e) will achieve this aim. Or so you would hope.

Let me digress slightly but bear with me. Recently, The Australian editorialized (www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/take-the-politicking-out-of-infrastructure-projects/news-story/41e1b27bda05b884949a5e2bd8de4ca9) on the topic of the politicization of infrastructure development. That editorial quoted Philip Davies, outgoing head of Infrastructure Australia:

Too often we see commitments being made to projects before a business case has been prepared, a full set of options has been considered and rigorous analysis of a potential project’s benefits and costs has been undertaken.

Too right! The Australian editorial used the NBN as the most flagrant example of this malaise. But it occurs to me that, while not strictly an infrastructure project per se, our Paris Agreement commitment puts the NBN in the shade in this respect.

Nowhere in all of the Turnbull/Frydenberg propaganda – in speeches, press releases, fact sheets or any publicly available documentation on government web site – is the figure of 0.016C mentioned, or any other temperature goal. There is a total disconnect between the stated aim of the Paris Agreement and our CO2 emissions reduction target. In fact, politically, it could not be otherwise because that would drag the naked emperor into full, pitiless sunlight. However, I am not concerned with politics but good governance, something which is conspicuously missing in this debacle.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Darryl Budge: Politically Correct Medicine

Posted By on July 30th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/07/politically-correct-medicine/

The Medical Board of Australia is pushing a draft code that would oblige physicians to accept and thereby endorse ‘cultural practices’ antithetical to both good medicine and civilised conduct. Female genital mutilation, payback spearings — apparently these demand ‘respect’…..

A proposed Code of Conduct, which is open for public submissions until August 3, could force doctors to accept ‘cultural beliefs and practises’ that are opposed to good medical practise, according to a group of doctors.

The Medical Board of Australia draft code of conduct that will apply to all Australian doctors requires doctors to be “culturally safe” and comply with a patients’ beliefs about gender identity and sexuality, with no provision given for a doctor to differ in their professional judgements. A doctors’ group convened by Dr Lachlan Dunjey of Perth, has expressed concern for the future of medicine in Australia in light of the changes.

“We are concerned with the possible interpretation of ‘culturally safe’, that it should not impact on good health outcomes and good medical practice”, the group has stated. “We are concerned that ‘respectful practice’ is significantly different to ‘respectful of the beliefs and cultures of others’ and that this change also could impact on good health outcomes.

“Respect for a patient does not equal respecting ‘cultural beliefs and practices’ that may be antithetical to good medical practice.”