MEDIA Comments turned off

The Media’s War on Freedom of the Press The free press is a threat, read about it in the mainstream media. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on April 13th, 2018

” The free press is a threat to freedom of the press, read about it in the mainstream media.”

The media took a brief break from its campaign against the Sinclair Media Group to go after the National Enquirer. The two don’t have anything in common except the perception of being pro-Trump.

In the good old days, going after rival media outlets meant writing nasty things about them. But these days the media doesn’t write nasty things for the sake of writing them. It writes nasty things to get someone fired, investigated or imprisoned. And that’s what its Sinclair and Enquirer stories are about.

CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times had wasted barrels of ink and pixels, to warn that Trump’s criticism of their media outlets represented a grave threat to the First Amendment.

And what better way to protect the First Amendment than by destroying it?

In its story about the FBI raid on Trump’s lawyer, the Times managed to suggest that the Enquirer’s support for the President of the United States might strip it of its First Amendment protection.

The Times tells its readers that the “federal inquiry” poses “thorny questions about A.M.I.’s First Amendment protections, and whether its record in supporting Mr. Trump somehow opens the door to scrutiny usually reserved for political organizations.”

That’s a thorny question alright. And there’s plenty more thorns where that one came from.

In ’08, the New York Times published an op-ed by Obama, but rejected McCain’s response. It just published an editorial titled, “Watch Out, Ted Cruz. Beto is Coming” which appears to have no purpose other than to help Beto O’Rourke raise money from New York Times readers.

The Times has a sharp thorn. So sharp it could punch a hole in it and the entire mainstream media.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Living With Politics as War By Angelo Codevilla

Posted By on April 13th, 2018

Whoever was surprised by the hate-fest against the National Rifle Association and conservative Americans in general that followed the Parkland, FL school shooting must not have been paying attention. Over the past half century, a ruling class formed by our uniformly leftist educational system and occupying the commanding heights of corporate life, governmental bureaucracies, the media, etc. accuses its targets of everything from murder and terrorism to culpable psycho-social disorders (racism, sexism, and so forth).

Leaders, marchers, and rioters speak from identical scripts. They do not try to persuade. They strengthen their own side’s vehemence. They restrict opponents from speaking on their own behalf, and use state and corporate power to push them to society’s margins. While demanding deference to themselves, they mention right-leaning Americans and their causes only to insult and de-legitimize them.

Republican politicians and Fox News grant the respect denied them. They respond with facts and reason. But the Left’s reasoning is war’s reasoning: helping one’s own by hurting the enemy.

Political-war-by-accusation-of-crime is common in the world. As a rule—Charles de Gaulle was not the first to note it—“peoples are moved only by elemental sentiments, violent images, brutal invocations.”

But in America, political war used to be rare. The Federalist Papers begin thus: “it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice.”

Was America ever ruled by reason? For the most part, and relative to the rest of the world, yes it was. How did this come to be? In 1816, Thomas Jefferson answered: “our functionaries have done well, because… if any were [inclined to do otherwise], they feared to show it.” In short, America was exceptional because the American people were exceptional.

Today, Americans seem to be regressing to humanity’s sad norm. “Elemental sentiments, violent images, brutal invocations” have become the currency of American public life. Hence, reasoned arguments about the common good have as much chance of getting attention, never mind of giving pause to persons who hate you, as do pearls cast before swine. In politics as in economics, bad currency drives out good.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Poll: Two-Thirds of Millennials Don’t Know What Auschwitz Was By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on April 13th, 2018

As the world marked Yom HaShoah on Thursday, a new poll revealed that nearly half of millennials cannot name one concentration camp out of the more than 40,000 camps and ghettos used during the Holocaust.

The survey from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany polled adults in the United States ahead of this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Seventy percent of those polled said they believe fewer people seem to care about the Holocaust than they used to, while 58 percent said that an atrocity like the Holocaust could happen again.

Thirty-one percent of all Americans polled and 41 percent of millennial-generation respondents believed that 2 million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust — substantially less than the 6 million Jews killed.

Even though knowledge of the Holocaust is lacking — just 20 percent had visited a Holocaust museum — 93 percent agreed students should learn about the Holocaust in school and 80 percent said it was important to continue Holocaust education to ensure history does not repeat itself. CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Saudis admit paying for jihad By James Lewis

Posted By on April 13th, 2018

In an interview with the Atlantic, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman revealed that Saudi Arabia has financed terrorism. Most people will ignore this. The U.S. left has successfully colluded with jihad against national security. That is also part of Mueller’s mission, to cover up and protect jihadist infiltration, espionage and sabotage during the Clinton-Obama years. See the Awan espionage cell placed in the House Intelligence Committee, with the plausible collusion of Mueller, Comey, Brennan, and Clapper. It was much too obvious not to be noticed, and the House Democrats including Debbie Wasserman-Schultz literally ignored the need for vetting. This was not an accident.

Mohammed bin Salman is trying to modernize and hold down the jihad-sponsoring and paying faction, which apparently involved Walid bin Tallal. However, in Islam there is no such thing as a permanent peace. There is only “hudna,” or a temporary truce with “the enemies of God.” In Turkey, the jihad faction came back when Tayyip Recip Erdogan was allowed to win his first election with the collusion of the EU, which insisted on international recognition of this “election” of a paleo-fascist party, the party of neo-Ottomanism (self-described).

Trump has gotten the Salman faction in SA to turn against the Sunni jihadist faction, but in SA, basically a tribal federation, nothing completely changes. Same as Turkey, etc.

For that reason, exposure of Mohammed bin Salman’s admission of guilt always has to be considered to be tactical. This is not a governing hierarchy, it’s an unstable tribal gang, with a fantasy of conquering the world. The left loves jihad for that reason, and we are facing a left-jihad coalition. Now we know that Facebook and Google have been set up as political players from the start, that they provide shelter for Obama radicals who are constantly plotting to overthrow Trump, and we see the new Soros foundation with something like $50 billion from Soros. We are still seeing a new version of old-style Marxist-Leninist imperialism. Obama is a Third World Socialist. The internet is the natural domain for that style of imperialism, and they don’t disguise their willingness to use AI and planted electronics in individual homes under extranational “laws” to exercise control. Europe is seeing a revolt against this, since Victor Orban and the Hungarians are afraid of Soros, and have seen Soviet imperialism in the memory of living individuals.

Americans are soft targets, they have been told never to believe in political conspiracies, which do exist, and which are in fact the continuation of old infections.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.S., France and Britain Craft Broad Plans for Strike on Syria Trump confers with May and Macron; Mattis warns a mistake could broaden the conflict to Russia and IranBy Dion Nissenbaum and Gordon Lubold

Posted By on April 13th, 2018

WASHINGTON—Britain, France and the U.S. united Thursday around broad plans for a military strike against Syria as they worked to bridge differences over the scope and purpose of a coordinated response to a suspected chemical weapons attack, U.S. officials said.

President Donald Trump met with his national security team on Thursday to weigh military options while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sought to limit the impact of an expected attack by moving warplanes under the protection of Russian air defenses.

While officials in all three countries said there now is definitive proof that Syria used chemical weapons last weekend to kill dozens of civilians, they had yet to finalize plans for a strike as the Pentagon warned about the risks of miscalculation.

Momentum had been building for a unified reprisal, especially after Mr. Trump suggested Wednesday on Twitter that a cruise missile strike was looming.

But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis injected a public note of caution into the discussion Thursday, suggesting that the U.S. and its allies had to carefully calibrate any strike to ensure that it didn’t trigger a broader conflict with Syria’s two biggest backers, Russia and Iran.

“We are trying to stop the murder of innocent people, but, on a strategic level, it’s how do we keep this from escalating out of control, if you get my drift on that,” he told U.S. lawmakers. CONTINUE AT SITE

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Women’s March Holds a One-Way ‘Discussion’ When its leaders came to my campus, photos and recording were barred, and questions were screened. By Kassy Dillon

Posted By on April 13th, 2018

I’m a student at Mount Holyoke College, a women’s liberal-arts school, which last weekend hosted the 2018 Women of Color Trailblazers Leadership Conference. Keynote speakers included National Women’s March founders Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour.

As president of the Mount Holyoke College Republicans, I was looking forward to this event, billed as a “discussion.” I was excited to engage the ideas presented by these far-left figures and cover the event on my online publication, Lone Conservative.

But outside the conference venue, I was greeted by signs prohibiting photography and recording. Audience members weren’t permitted to ask questions directly to the speakers. Instead, we had to write them on note cards, and only preapproved questions would be answered during the 15 minutes dedicated to Q&A. Some discussion.

As I walked in, I could feel my peers glaring at me—a familiar enough experience for an outspoken Republican on a campus full of leftist women. But I was surprised that only about 75 people showed up, in a room that can hold up to a thousand.

HOMELAND SECURITY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Terror Plot? There’s an App for That Encrypted messaging systems pose a real threat, and Western leaders need to engage their creators. By Steven Stalinsky

Posted By on April 13th, 2018

Right now Islamic State and its followers around the world are using mobile devices to choose targets, discuss methods and timing, and even raise funds. With the aid of encrypted messaging apps—most of which are developed by Western companies—these terrorists can communicate fully out of sight of intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. The murders of countless innocent people have been planned this way, and most Western leaders seem unsure about how to stop it.

Counterterrorism officials are overwhelmed by the sheer number of potential terrorists using these apps on mobile devices. They are further handicapped by their inability to access the encrypted information, which could help them stop attacks. In a January speech at the International Conference on Cyber Security, FBI Director Christopher Wray called the threat from terrorist use of encrypted apps “an urgent public safety issue.” He revealed that, as part of lawful investigations, the FBI had tried and failed to access encrypted information on nearly 8,000 devices in 2017. Appealing to the technology sector for help, Mr. Wray said: “I’m open to all kinds of ideas, because I reject this notion that there could be such a place that no matter what kind of lawful authority you have, it’s utterly beyond reach to protect innocent citizens.”

In response, Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) wrote a highly critical letter. He called Mr. Wray’s speech “ill-informed” and damaging to America’s security, economy and freedom: “Building secure software is extremely difficult . . . and introducing vulnerabilities would likely create catastrophic unintended consequences that could debilitate software functionality and security entirely.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why Israel’s DNA Is So Revolutionary Daniel Johnson AND Tzipi Hotovely

Posted By on April 12th, 2018

Daniel Johnson: One of the issues that I know you’ve been very much embroiled in is this question of whether Israeli law will apply to the West Bank. This is clearly in the interests of not just settlers but Arabs too, Palestinians as well, so how are we going to resolve that and how are you going to present this to the world not as a bid to move the goalposts, but simply as doing justice?

Tzipi Hotovely: For many years the real argument about the settlements was not made. We made security the only issue. But since I got to the foreign ministry, I have put the issue of justice on the table. I think it’s very important to do so because if you make security the top issue then you end up with many countries saying, well, if this is not your land, we don’t care about your security interest, we might be tolerant about it but just give this land to whoever it belongs to. So I stood in the foreign ministry in my first speech and I said, “This is our land, this is the land of the Jewish people.” I think that, as simple as it sounds, this is a real revolution in the way we defend the case. For many years we said, “This is a conflict area, there are 200 areas under conflict in the international arena, please look at that like you look at any other.” What I am saying is, “No, this is where Israel started.” You can’t defend Tel Aviv if you don’t defend Hebron and Jerusalem, because this is where the heritage started.

There are two Israeli stories. One is of modern Israel — a modern state, re-established in 1948, the Zionist story of 100 years. This story is problematic — you know why? Now I am, of course, a big Zionist, and I think the Zionist movement is maybe one of the biggest miracles of the 20th century if not all humankind, this revival by re-establishing a state after 2,000 years in exile. But what is missing from the story is: what makes a bunch of people coming from Russia, Yemen, Morocco, Britain, from America, re-create a state in the Middle East?

I love telling this story: Arthur Balfour is asking Chaim Weizmann why he insists on establishing Israel in this region, because this is a very problematic area. And Weizmann said, “Would you like to have Paris as your capital?” To which Balfour replied, “Excuse me, Mr Weizmann, London belongs to the British people.” So Weizmann looks at him and says, “Well, Jerusalem belonged to the Jewish people way before London was established.” I use that as an anecdote when I meet audiences because I want them to have the sense of feeling that this is not occupation. We are not occupiers in our own land, as I always say. I fight this concept of occupation. This year is the 50th anniversary [of the Six Day War]. The thing that I put on the table in the foreign ministry is to fight the very basic idea of occupation. We’re not occupiers, even according to international law. Because there was never a Palestinian state.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

OVERRATED VOLTAIRE BY DANIEL JOHNSON

Posted By on April 12th, 2018

Everything about Voltaire was confected, starting with his name — only one of 178 noms de plume that he used. (Admittedly, he would not be the only would-be celebrity to reinvent himself.) Most of the bon mots attributed to him are spurious, including his last words. (Asked on his deathbed to renounce Satan, he supposedly said: “This is no time to make new enemies.” But this joke was first attributed to him two centuries later.) Others, such as “the best is the enemy of the good”, were plagiarised. Or take one of the most commonly quoted: “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Not only did Voltaire never say it, but nothing in his life suggests that he would have defended anyone or anything to the death.

For Voltaire was an arch-egotist. He made one fortune, inherited another, and pleased himself. From his cavalier treatment of women — his mistresses included a widow, a married woman and his niece — to his envious treatment of younger rivals such as Rousseau, he demonstrated little of the nobility that posterity conferred on him. On the contrary: he admired and was admired above all by enlightened despots. He was only too happy to correspond with Catherine the Great and Frederick the Great, neither of whom were friends of liberty. Frederick, indeed, lured Voltaire to his court: the first in a long line of French intellectuals to serve as useful idiots. Napoleon “loved” Voltaire, finding him “always reasonable, never a charlatan, never a fanatic”.

Yet there was a fanatical side to Voltaire. He liked to depict himself as a scourge of “superstition”, which could mean Catholicism or Judaism, and as a foe of religious persecution; but he himself had no time for religious freedom. He urged his fellow philosophe d’Alembert to annihilate “infamy”, by which he meant the Church: “écrasez l’infame”. To Frederick (a notorious unbeliever) he wrote: “Our [religion] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most sanguinary that has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think . . .” Such words have a sinister resonance today, when Christians are widely persecuted. And Voltaire’s open contempt for the masses gives the lie to the suggestion that he was any kind of liberal, let alone a democrat, or even that he had really learned much about what makes a free country from his time in England.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Unwanted Candor A scholar is sued for reporting the facts in a Title IX harassment case. KC Johnson

Posted By on April 12th, 2018

Amid a national debate about due process and fairness in campus Title IX adjudications, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently observed, “there’s been criticism of some college codes of conduct for not giving the accused person a fair opportunity to be heard, and that’s one of the basic tenets of our system, as you know: everyone deserves a fair hearing.” Few academics have more powerfully made these criticisms than Northwestern University professor Laura Kipnis, whose 2015 Chronicle of Higher Education essay lambasting Title IX’s application to campus sexual-assault and harassment allegations prompted a university Title IX investigation—against Kipnis herself. Though Kipnis was exonerated, the investigation was a form of punishment, since professors normally aren’t questioned by lawyers hired by their school as the result of publishing in their area of expertise. The experience prompted Kipnis to write Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus, which explores how Title IX has come to threaten the rights not only of accused students but also of faculty.

One chapter of Unwanted Advances took readers inside a Northwestern University sexual-assault and harassment hearing against philosophy professor Peter Ludlow. Though the university cleared Ludlow of his sexual-assault charges, it found him guilty of sexual harassment, and he resigned. Kipnis lawfully obtained the university’s investigative file and about 1,000 text messages between Ludlow and one of his accusers, a female graduate student.

The graduate student, Lauren Ledyon-Hardy, was a Kipnis critic before the book appeared, twice criticizing her in op-eds in which she charged Kipnis with violating the Northwestern faculty handbook by writing an “alarmingly inaccurate” essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education. She further denounced Kipnis’s “repugnant moral and political views” and hailed the parties who filed Title IX complaints against the professor as “pretty reasonable”—without revealing that she was speaking of herself. Ledyon-Hardy’s conduct exemplifies Harvard law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen’s concern that “Title IX is too often conscripted to serve purposes antithetical to the education of citizens in a democracy, in which disagreement, dissent, or disapproval should lead to argument, not to an infinite loop of institutional investigation.”

After Unwanted Advances appeared, Ledyon-Hardy turned to the courts, alleging that Kipnis’s book was defamatory and improperly disclosed private facts. Her complaint faulted Kipnis for falsely portraying her as excessively “litigious”—a complaint that Ledyon-Hardy ironically sees as remediable through a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit’s core, which focused on Ledyon-Hardy’s disagreement with how Kipnis presented evidence, threatens both academic freedom and investigative work about Title IX. Yet U.S. District Court Judge Jack Blakey has greenlighted the suit. The judge tipped his hand when he allowed Ledyon-Hardy to litigate under a pseudonym—despite her previous op-eds, signed with her real name, criticizing Kipnis. (Kipnis and her publisher, HarperCollins, have filed a response to the complaint, and discovery has commenced in the case. The next stage, absent a settlement, would be motions for summary judgment before the district court.)