NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Fusion Transparency Rap Per Sen. Feinstein, let’s get the full FBI-Trump-Russia record out.

Posted By on January 11th, 2018

California Senator Dianne Feinstein is getting media raves for flouting Judiciary Committee rules Tuesday and releasing the testimony of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson without committee approval. Mrs. Feinstein’s disrespect for procedure aside, she has the right idea. Let’s make all of the Russian- Trump -FBI record public.

Democrats seem interested in revealing only what adds to their hope that Donald Trump canoodled with the Kremlin. This includes Mr. Simpson’s self-serving account of the origins of the infamous dossier about Mr. Trump that he hired British ex-spy Christopher Steele to compile. Mr. Simpson, a political gun for hire, spun a heroic tale of noble intentions and praise for Mr. Steele, calling him a “Boy Scout” with “quality” intelligence-gathering skills.

Yet Mr. Simpson couldn’t corroborate the dossier’s claims and had to backtrack on his newsiest allegation. Democrats and the media seized on his claim that the dossier supported information the FBI already had from “a human source from inside the Trump organization.” The Fusion CEO used the same language about a source “inside the Trump camp” last week in a New York Times op-ed.

Yet Fusion waited until after the testimony was released to inform its media friends that this was a “mischaracterization” by Mr. Simpson. Turns out he wasn’t referring to a confidential informant from within Team Trump, but to the fact the FBI had been tipped off by a foreign diplomat about a Trump staffer, George Papadopoulos. Mr. Simpson has a hard time telling a straight story.

The bigger point is that the public is in an evidence-free zone in which Democrats spin the dossier’s unproven claims, while Republicans speculate about the FBI’s partisan motives. The way out is to release to the public the documents the FBI used to justify spying on Trump officials during a presidential campaign. The good news is that Congressional investigators have finally obtained those documents from the FBI and Justice Department.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The U.N. Agency That Keeps Palestinians From Prospering The administration’s freeze on funds for Unrwa is a first step in breaking the Mideast stalemate. By Alex Joffe and Asaf Romirowsky

Posted By on January 11th, 2018

Frustrated by Palestinian intransigence, the Trump administration has reportedly frozen $125 million of the American contribution to the internationally funded welfare agency for Palestinian “refugees,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

Mr. Trump had expressed his irritation with the agency, known by the acronym Unrwa, in a characteristic tweet, noting that the U.S. provides “HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year” and gets “no appreciation or respect” from Palestinians. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., echoed the sentiment, saying the U.S. would use funding as leverage “until the Palestinians are agreeing to come back to the negotiation table.”

This approach is unprecedented. The U.S. is Unrwa’s largest single donor, contributing more than $360 million of the agency’s annual $1.25 billion budget. Historically, U.S. support to Unrwa has been untouchable despite the agency’s role keeping Palestinians in social stasis, providing health, education and welfare services while undermining resettlement efforts and fomenting rejectionism—thereby perpetuating the Palestinians’ “refugee” status for decades.

The Trump administration is not the only factor militating for change. The titanic crisis created by the Syrian civil war, which has produced millions of actual refugees (along with half a million civilian deaths), puts the Palestinian issue in a new and dramatically diminished light. Unrwa’s own mismanagement—such as reports that the agency has dramatically overcounted the Palestinians it serves in Lebanon—also makes the status quo more difficult to sustain.

The U.S. supported Unrwa for decades largely because it did not wish the Palestinian issue to threaten other policy imperatives. During the Cold War, that meant containing communism and maintaining the flow of oil from Arab states. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. policy has revolved around containing the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to prevent regional conflagration and preventing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, especially Iran.

American diplomatic support for a Palestinian state began in these contexts but was routed through the Oslo process and the Palestinian Authority, which has deliberately failed to create stable foundations for a functioning state. The Trump administration’s Middle East policy is not yet formally wedded to any existing diplomatic process, whether with Iran or in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. While stability is a long-term American political goal, shifting funds from Unrwa and addressing other refugee crises has become likelier than at any time in the past 60 years.

So how can the Trump administration move forward regarding Unrwa? The first step needs to be a clear presidential policy statement on the question, made with the support of key congressional leaders: Unrwa has outlived its usefulness; the Palestinians are not “refugees” but are entitled to citizenship in the countries where they’ve lived for decades, and the Palestinian Authority must assume its responsibilities toward it own population.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Drilling in Alaska Is Good for the Earth It’s greener than fracking and less risky than deep-water rigs. By Thomas Landstreet

Posted By on January 11th, 2018

It has been a good month for American energy development. The tax reform signed by President Trump contained a provision allowing for oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Last week the Interior Department proposed opening up wide swaths of territory offshore.

This is good policy for a lot of reasons, but the least obvious is that it will help the environment. Despite howls from the green lobby, the truth is that it’s less hazardous to drill for oil on land and in shallow waters using conventional rigs.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon was drilling in about 5,000 feet of water when it exploded in 2010. If the accident had occurred on land or in shallow seas, the spill could have been contained in three days instead of three months.

The company took the blame for the disaster, paying $19 billion, but I blame U.S. environmental policy for chasing oil producers further and further out on the risk curve. For more than 40 years, the U.S. government has had a moratorium on drilling in shallow water, putting nearly 100 billion barrels out of reach.

This overregulation has been neither prudent nor partisan. President George H.W. Bush, a former oilman, enacted a separate and redundant moratorium in 1990; Bill Clinton extended it in 1998. And approval rates for drilling permits on federal lands plummeted during the Obama administration.

The ANWR is thought to hold at least 10 billion barrels of crude oil, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The actual number is likely greater. The nearby Trans-Alaska Pipeline is ready to go, with the capacity to move ANWR oil 800 miles to the Port of Valdez. That pipeline operates at 25% of capacity and could use the extra flow for efficiency’s sake.

Drilling in the ANWR poses less risk to the environment than fracking. It would also be cheaper. Fracking was invented in response to drilling restrictions, as a way to produce oil from shale formations on private land, where government restrictions don’t apply.

But fracking is no walk in the park. A fracked well consumes an average of 4.2 million pounds of sand and between two million and nine million gallons of water. The sludge created as a byproduct requires careful handling and underground disposal. From an environmental standpoint, drilling in the ANWR ought to be attractive by comparison. CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why the EU’s Migration Commissioner Should Resign by Jan Wójcik

Posted By on January 11th, 2018

Claiming recently that there is no way to protect Europe’s borders, which is his job, EU Commissioner Avramopoulos openly admitted to powerlessness in the face of the massive influx of migrants, yet had the gall to accuse European Council President Donald Tusk — one of the few EU bureaucrats who opposes the quota mechanism — of lacking a sense of European solidarity.

Tusk was behind the closing of the migrants’ Balkan route through Macedonia, a policy that Avramopoulos attempted to torpedo; it ultimately worked to decrease immigration to Greece. This is not surprising, as having the route open was a “pull factor” for migration.

A genuinely honest discussion needs to take place on what measures are feasible, which risks are worth taking and which migration movements are welcome. We owe it to Europe to replace multiculturalism-gone-wild with rational thought and sensible action. Avramopoulos is the wrong person to lead this task.

The European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, should resign. Claiming recently that there is no way to protect Europe’s borders, which is his job, he openly admitted to powerlessness in the face of the massive influx of migrants. He said that neither “erect[ing] fences” nor “harsh language” will curb or stop the flow; yet had the gall to accuse European Council President Donald Tusk — one of the few European bureaucrats who opposes the quota mechanism — of lacking a sense of European solidarity.

Tusk was behind the closing of the migrants’ Balkan route the Macedonia, a policy that Avramopoulos attempted to torpedo; it ultimately worked to decrease immigration to Greece. This is not surprising, as having the route open was a “pull factor” for migration. Another such factor was German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mantra about absorbing refugees — “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do it.”)

So, too, were the welcoming and colorful advertisements of the asylum process presented by Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), with translations into Urdu, Arabic, Turkish and other languages. Germany’s campaign to portray itself as a paradise for migrants has been so successful over the past three years that BAMF is now in the uncomfortable position of having to dispel its own myth.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sweden: Not Everyone Can Say #MeToo by Nima Gholam Ali Pour

Posted By on January 11th, 2018

Sweden has let in a huge wave of young male migrants, many of whom have created an insecure environment for women; when these women have cried for help and tried to share their stories, the Swedish media and politicians have refused to listen.

The Swedish media recently reported that police no longer time to investigate rape cases because of the many murders.

The main problem with the “#MeToo Movement” is that instead of relying on the rule of law, people start relying on the rule of social media. The number of “likes” or “retweets” decides whose experiences of sexual assault are recognized. If you have not been harassed or assaulted by a celebrity, nothing happens. If you were sexually assaulted by a nobody, nobody cares.

Interest and involvement in the “#MeToo Movement” has been strong in Sweden. Internet searches for the phrase “me too” show that Swedes made almost three times as many as the Dutch population, in second place for the number of searches for “me too”.

What the #MeToo Movement reminds us of in Sweden is how the issue of sexual harassment has become very politicized. While many Swedes are eager to expose celebrities who have sexually assaulted or sexually harassed women, Sweden is still a country where sexual assaults and rapes by newly arrived and illegal migrants is denied and concealed in the most vicious ways by parts of the official establishment.

One of the clearest examples is a recent case where a rapist was not condemned and his victim was blamed. On October 11, 2017, Arif Moradi, an illegal immigrant from Afghanistan who lives in Sweden, was convicted of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. Moradi had been appointed in November 2016 to be a youth leader at a “Confirmation camp” by the Church of Sweden. At this camp, Moradi began to make sexual advances towards the 14-year-old girl, until on the night of November 12-13, 2016, the most serious abuse took place as the other children were sleeping.

The victim succeeded in fleeing to the bathroom, where she sent several text messages to a friend at the camp. Together, the two girls woke up the parish educator, Eva-Lotta Martinsson, and told her what had taken place. The parish educator, however, decided not to report the incident to the police. The reason the parish educator did not inform police was apparently because, as she later told the police, she did not perceive it as “serious.” When the girl’s mother found out about the assault, she did report it to the police.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The College Board Still Can’t See Europe Straight Its standards for the AP European History exam omit vital concepts such as liberty and individual endeavor. By David Randall

Posted By on January 10th, 2018

David Randall is the director of communications for the National Association of Scholars.

The College Board doesn’t take criticism well. The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has twice called out the College Board for writing progressive propaganda and calling it a standard for an Advanced Placement test — first when we criticized its AP United States History test in 2014, and then when we criticized its AP European History test in 2016 (in a report called “The Disappearing Continent”). Each time, the College Board pretended it had made no mistakes — and then did a shabby job of fixing its errors, in hopes that its critics would go away.

The College Board has a standard procedure in place, which it’s been using to respond to our criticism of the Advanced Placement European History (APEH) standards. First it says nothing is wrong with its exam. Then it silently makes superficial changes — and says the exam is now, as it always has been, perfect. When we find that the exam is still grossly flawed, it repeats that nothing is wrong with its exam. Then, if the public is still asking questions, it makes further silent and superficial changes.

Every silent change the College Board make is an admission of how badly it presents history. Moreover, the board’s surreptitiousness about admitting error — its refusal to acknowledge that it made changes in the first place — confirms that it is not engaged in good-faith efforts at reform.

Frederick M. Hess and Grant Addison have written at NRO to defend the College Board’s most recent silent revision, this time of its APEH standards. Hess and Addison address a few of the criticisms I made in my December 2017 article “Churchill In, Columbus Still Out,” but not my most serious criticisms of the structural flaws of the College Board’s APEH standards.

Above all, the College Board still omits liberty in its outline of AP European History. The very words liberty and freedom are still almost completely absent from its standards, and so is the long struggle for liberty that defines European history. You’ll never learn from the College Board that Michel de Montaigne argued for tolerance, that John Milton championed freedom of speech, or that English lawyers and judges built English liberty upon the common law.

The College Board still omits the entire history of modern Europe’s unique development of the architecture of modern knowledge — every intellectual discipline we use to think about the world, from astronomy to geology in the natural sciences, and from art history to sociology in the humanities and social sciences. You’ll never learn from the College Board that Jean-François Champollion deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics, that Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace pioneered computer science, or that Gregor Mendel discovered modern genetics.

The College Board still omits chance and individual endeavor, telling students that European history is all inevitable social and economic development, which leads inexorably to a secular, well-governed welfare state. If you want to know about the Age of Discovery and Conquest, the College Board will tell you about the compass, the quadrant, and the lateen rig — but not the names of Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, or Francisco Pizarro. If you want to know why Europeans don’t all just settle down to follow directives from bureaucrats in Brussels, the College Board won’t give you a clue.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

ISIS Sets Its Sights on Gaza by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on January 10th, 2018

ISIS is making it clear that it now has its eyes set on the Gaza Strip. By calling on Palestinians to rebel against Hamas, ISIS is hoping to facilitate its mission of infiltrating the Gaza Strip.

Ongoing attempts by ISIS to infiltrate the Palestinian area should worry not only Palestinians, but Israel and Egypt as well.

If ISIS manages to get a toehold in the Gaza Strip, they will be that much closer to Israel’s doorstep, with their jihadis minutes from Israeli towns and cities. For the Egyptians, this means that one day they will have to fight ISIS not only in the Sinai, but also inside the Gaza Strip. The biggest losers, once again: the Palestinians.

There is nothing more delightful than watching two Islamic terror groups fight each other to the death. For several years now, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and ISIS in Sinai have been cooperating with each other, especially in smuggling weapons and terrorists over the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. It was a win-win: Hamas supplied ISIS with terrorists; ISIS supplied Hamas with weapons that were smuggled into the Gaza Strip.

It appears, however, that the honeymoon between the two terror groups is over.

Last week, ISIS published a video documenting the execution of one of its men after he was found guilty of smuggling weapons to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The execution of Musa Abu Zmat, a former Hamas terrorist who fled the Gaza Strip to join ISIS, took place in Sinai.

In the video, the ISIS terrorists accuse Abu Zmat of being an “apostate” for smuggling weapons to Hamas’s armed wing, Ezaddin Al-Qassam, in Gaza. They also accuse Abu Zmat of smuggling dozens of people from Al-Arish, in the Sinai, into the Gaza Strip.

The ISIS terrorist who carried out the execution by a single shot to the head has been identified as Mohammed Al-Dajni, who is also from the Gaza Strip but fled to Sinai to join ISIS. Al-Dajni’s father, Abu Rashed, is a senior Hamas official who previously held a top position in the health services in the Gaza Strip.

Another ISIS operative who appeared in the execution video has been identified as Abu Kathem Al-Makdisi. In the video, Al-Makdisi is referred to as a “sharia judge.” He is the one who read out verdict against Abu Zmat before the execution. Al-Makdisi also condemns Hamas in the video and calls on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to join ISIS.

Palestinian sources say that Al-Makdisi’s real name is Hamzeh Al-Zamli, a convicted thief who fled the Gaza Strip several years ago. The sources note that he had been convicted of robbing several businesses in Gaza before he crossed the border to Sinai.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Egypt’s Al-Azhar University: Moderation or Dissimulation? by A. Z. Mohamed

Posted By on January 10th, 2018

While Al-Azhar’s informational campaign aims to promote “moderate” Islam, reinforce the values of citizenship and coexistence among Egyptians, and counter “deviant fatwas,” a recent study reveals that senior officials at Al-Azhar are still defending and promoting school curricula that contradict tolerance and acceptance of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority.

Al-Azhar officials, it turned out, removed the proposed content encouraging tolerance and acceptance of Christians from the school curricula, and the official who proposed that curricular “reform” was fired.

Why are Al-Azhar’s leaders not fully cooperating with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi? Factors include their extremist Islamic faith, and uncertainty regarding their public image and their popularity if they yield to Sisi’s demands. These reservations seem especially charged in the context of rivalries for religious leadership in Egypt, and signs of support for Al Azhar from the parliament, the media and the public. Possibly even more persuasive is the fear of gradually losing all power and the ability to use taqiyyah when needed if they yield to Sisi’s demands.

Al-Azhar University seemed to have either an ambivalent attitude or a two-faced, taqiyah [dissimulation] one regarding tolerance towards Christians in particular and Islamic moderation in general, according to a report, “Two Faces Of Egypt’s Al-Azhar: Promoting Goodwill, Tolerance Towards Christians In Informational Holiday Campaign – But Refusing To Do The Same In Its School Curricula,” disclosed by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

While Al-Azhar’s informational campaign, “Sharing the Homeland,” aims to promote “moderate” Islam, reinforce the values of citizenship and coexistence among Egyptians, and counter “deviant fatwas,” a recent study published in El-Watan News reveals that senior officials at Al-Azhar are still defending and promoting school curricula that contradict tolerance and acceptance of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. Al-Azhar officials, it turned out, removed the proposed content encouraging tolerance and acceptance of Christians from the school curricula, and the official who proposed that curricular “reform” was fired.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Dirty College Secrets A record-breaking year for campus insanity. January 10, 2018 Walter Williams

Posted By on January 10th, 2018

A frequent point I have made in past columns has been about the educational travesty happening on many college campuses. Some people have labeled my observations and concerns as trivial, unimportant and cherry-picking. While the spring semester awaits us, let’s ask ourselves whether we’d like to see repeats of last year’s antics.

An excellent source for college news is Campus Reform, a conservative website operated by the Leadership Institute (https://www.campusreform.org). Its reporters are college students. Here is a tiny sample of last year’s bizarre stories.

Donna Riley, a professor at Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education, published an article in the most recent issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Engineering Education, positing that academic rigor is a “dirty deed” that upholds “white male heterosexual privilege.” Riley added that “scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonizing.” Would you hire an engineering education graduate who has little mastery of the rigor of engineering? What does Riley’s vision, if actually practiced by her colleagues, do to the worth of degrees in engineering education from Purdue held by female and black students?

Sympathizing with Riley’s vision is Rochelle Gutierrez, a math education professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In her recent book, she says the ability to solve algebra and geometry problems perpetuates “unearned privilege” among whites. Educators must be aware of the “politics that mathematics brings” in society. She thinks that “on many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness.” After all, she adds, “who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White.” What’s worse is that the university’s interim provost, John Wilkin, sanctioned her vision, telling Fox News that Gutierrez is an established and admired scholar who has been published in many peer-reviewed publications. I hope that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s black students don’t have the same admiration and stay away from her classes.

Last February, a California State University, Fullerton professor assaulted a CSUF Republicans member during a demonstration against President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration. The students identified the assailant as Eric Canin, an anthropology professor. Fortunately, the school had the good sense to later suspend Canin after confirming the allegations through an internal investigation.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

EPA Staff to Get Cut in Half Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on January 10th, 2018

The EPA has probably cost as many American jobs as China. Not to mention driving up the prices of everything. Now it’s the EPA that’s shedding jobs for a change.

The EPA Tuesday provided to Secrets its first year staff results which show that the agency is below levels not seen since former President Reagan’s administration.

And if just those slated to retire by early 2021 leave, Administrator Scott Pruitt and his team will have reduced a staff of nearly 15,000, to below 8,000, or a reduction of 47 percent.

This doesn’t include the fake CIA Global Warming expert whose retirement is taxpayer funded, but is being routed through the penal system.

The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison Wednesday for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job.

He also said he used the time “trying to find ways to fine tune the capitalist system” to discourage companies from damaging the environment. “I spent a lot of time reading on that,” said Beale.

Of course the mass retirements aren’t a done deal yet, but it does look like one of the destroyers of American prosperity will have plenty of time to read about the evils of capitalism. And while it will be at taxpayer expense, EPA operatives will at least be doing less damage when they’re not working for the government.