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Hassan Rouhani: Iran’s Executioner By Heshmat Alavi

Posted By on November 23rd, 2016

As we begin to wind down to the end of Hassan Rouhani’s term as president of the regime in Iran, it is time to take a look back at the past four years. We all remember how the West joyfully welcomed his election — read selection — as a change of gear in Iran aimed at moderation. However, what the world witnessed ever since has been anything but. An atrocious rise in executions, continued public punishments and an escalating trend of oppression has been Rouhani’s report card during his tenure. With a new administration coming into town, Washington must make it crystal clear to Tehran that human rights violations will no longer be tolerated.

Unprecedented executions

Despite pledging to hold the “key” to Iran’s problems, Rouhani has failed to provide even an iota of the freedoms the Iranian people crave and deserve. His record has revealed an unrelenting loyalty to the regime establishment in regards to social oppression and continued crackdowns. Iran sent 18 to the gallows last week alone, according to official reports.

As the international community continued its policy of appeasement, Rouhani and the entire regime used this opportunity to launch an execution rampage. Over 2,500 people have been sent to the gallows ever since Rouhani came to power, shattering all records held by this regime itself in over two decades.

In 2015 alone, Iran was executing an individual every eight hours, as reported by Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran.

Vast social crackdown

Rouhani’s commitment to regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the ruling elite has rendered a wide-ranging, escalating crackdown. In addition to the executions mentioned above, state-sponsored social oppression has resulted in horrific scenes of public hangings, floggings, and even limb amputations.

The prisons are overwhelmed with inmates, leading to intolerable and inhumane conditions. Political prisoners, specifically, are subject to horrendous treatment by the authorities. Renowned human rights organization Amnesty International has recently issued an Urgent Action call expressing major concerns over the case of Maryam Akbari Monfared, a Green Movement organizer still in prison two years after her family put up her bail.

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James Allan :Trump, Turnbull and the Turning Tide

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

The pundits were wrong, so wrong, in predicting that Hillary Clinton’s ascent to the White House was an inevitability. No surprise there, though, as the same homegrown solons and star columnists were no less convinced that Tony Abbott was ballot-box poison and had to go

The exit poll that caught my eye from the US election was the one in which those who ticked ‘we detest both candidates’ then went on to break 69% for Trump. That would be me too. I think the US voters got this right. Each party nominated the only person who could have lost to the other party’s candidate, but Hillary was worse by far. As for talk of ‘role model’ deficiencies with the Donald, well Hillary attacked the women who accused hubby Bill not of lewd talk but of actual rape. On what planet is that better role-modelling?

And here’s another surprise: it turns out that when East Coast comics insult Midwest voters, as they have done for decades, those voters couldn’t give a fig what comedians and chat-show hosts think about the election. Same with Hollywood stars such as Robert DeNiro ( as per below) and all the other Tinseltown tossers who condemn Trump for his attitude to women.

Regular voters can see that these people are hypocritical morons, the sort who denounce the president-elect in one breath and gush with praise for fugitive molester Roman Polanski or Woody Allen, who couldn’t keep his aged hands of his stepdaughter. Give me the last 30 years of phone and email records for JayZ, Charlie Sheen, DeNiro and the rest and I will personally guarantee that there will be comments a lot worse than Trump’s. So maybe they should have the self-awareness to butt out. Every time some Hollywood halfwit supported Clinton, Trump got more votes. The post-election ‘sore loser’ protests have been enough to make me puke, such are the hypocrisies of the Left these days.

And, just by the way, it’s worth noting that Trump got more of the black vote than Romney or McCain. He got less (yes, LESS) of the white vote than Romney. So the whiny left should shut up about “racism” — except it wouldn’t have anything else to say, so it won’t. Trump also got more of the Latino vote than Romney (who speaks Spanish) or McCain (who has a child married to a Latino). Turns out wide open immigration is not popular with all sorts of groups, including some Latinos.

On substance I hate Trump’s attitude to free trade. I hope Paul Ryan blocks that in the House, though much of this sits in the realm of executive power. Meanwhile, I think Trump will be miles and miles and miles better on appointing Supreme Court judges, given Hillary’s pledge to nominate candidates who are, once you cut through her rhetoric, left-wing pseudo-politicians, much like all of Canada’s top Supreme Court judges and more than a few here in Australia. I like Trump on seeing that if China and Russia do nothing on carbon emissions — and the reality is that they’re not — then carbon taxes and trading schemes and massive subsidies of renewables are idiocy. If we now don’t change direction here in Australia we are going to go from comparatively low cost energy to some of the world’s most expensive, with all of the massive renewables subsidies driving low cost production into the ground. Those disconcerting sounds you hear are jobs, lots of jobs, leaving the country.

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America’s Fourth Estate has become America’s Fifth Column Victor Sharpe

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

At one time, perhaps before the Vietnam War, the media was considered a respectable and trusted purveyor of objective news. But for too long much of the mainstream media in America has shed that belief and become instead organs of state propaganda.

The dread examples of such disinformation as was seen in the Fascist, Nazi, and Communist authoritarian regimes has, it now seems, increasingly polluted our own mainstream media (MSM).

The general election has exposed the alphabet houses – ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, CNN as no better than unapologetic shills for the Democrat party and for the Clinton machine. Newspapers share the same guilt with the New York Times and the Washington Post leading the baleful and deplorable charge.

It was President Thomas Jefferson who presciently saw the peril a future America might face in what has now become its present demise of a free and vital press when he said: “If it were left to me to decide whether we should have a government without a free press or a free press without a government, I would prefer the latter.”

We have seen the dismal and bleak spectacle of an endless procession of print and broadcasting reporters, journalists and talking heads taking unabashed leftwing, pro-Obama and pro-Clinton positions to the point of dropping all pretense at objectivity or impartiality.

In that same 18th century, when Jefferson uttered his warning about the press, Edmund Burke in England looked at what he called the three estates within the British political system. He saw the King, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. However pre-eminent above them all was the press, which he called the Fourth Estate.

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“Rights” as perceived by Islam are privileges conferred on Muslims exclusively by Sharia and Islamic doctrine, and on no one else. “What is inside Sharia is good and permissible, what is outside Sharia is evil and prohibited.” Ed Cline

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

What are “rights”?

A right is an existential condition that permits an individual to live, act, and speak in ways that promote his existence and happiness as a rational being.

“Rights” as perceived by Islam are privileges conferred on Muslims exclusively by Sharia and Islamic doctrine, and on no one else. “What is inside Sharia is good and permissible, what is outside Sharia is evil and prohibited.”

“Rationality” and “Reason” do not even have the same meanings in Islam that Westerners subscribe to.

The bases of Shariah are four: two are revelatory, coming from Allah, and include the two core sources, the Qur’ān, Islam’s holy book, and the Sunnah (the practice and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (s)); and two are based in rational endeavor, consensus (ijma) and analogical juristic reasoning (qiyās).

All other quotations are from The Ayn Rand Lexicon, found on http://aynrandlexicon.com/, according to subject.

Rand on reason and logic:

The distinguishing characteristic of logic (the art of non-contradictory identification) indicates the nature of the actions (actions of consciousness required to achieve a correct identification) and their goal (knowledge…..

“It’s logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality.” Logic is the art or skill of non-contradictory identification. Logic has a single law, the Law of Identity, and its various corollaries. If logic has nothing to do with reality, it means that the Law of Identity is inapplicable to reality. If so, then: a.) things are not what they are; b.) things can be and not be at the same time, in the same respect, i.e., reality is made up of contradictions. If so, by what means did anyone discover it? By illogical means…..

Reason is man’s only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge—and, therefore, the rejection of reason means that men should act regardless of and/or in contradiction to the facts of reality.

The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.

Sharia and Islam, as a “unified” package of ethics, is based, primarily, on those three old hoary diseases of man’s existence: superstition (the purported existence of a supreme being, in this case, Allah), consensus (so many people believe in Allah, he must exist, beginning with Mohammad), and, emotions or feelings. The latter are not tools of cognition; they are responses to what one observes, that is, when one employs one’s cognitive faculties.

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Trumping the Media: Donald Continually Confounds the MSM By Roger Kimball

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

Looking back on it now, who do you think provided the best commentary on the run-up to the election?

And a related question: who has provided the most insightful commentary on the aftermath, i.e. “Why Trump Happened,” “What His Victory Means,” “What the Protesters and Crybullies Want”?

It’s amusing now to replay the scenes of those Important People who assured us that Trump, the clown, could never win. My favorite headline was from The Nation: “Relax, Donald Trump Can’t Win.”

My favorite election clip was provided by Bret Stephens (who was joined in his folly by many others). And if you just want to listen to ten minutes of fatuousness, here’s an audio clip of the Wall Street Journal’s national politics editor Aaron Zitner speaking on Election Day. Zitner was 100% wrong, but what’s amusing is the supreme if casual confidence with which he delivers his dicta: “Of course Hillary will win. Any fool knows that. All the best polls show that she is a shoo-in. All the most perceptive people (like moi, A. Zitner) agree.” Et cetera.

But if the MSM was almost exclusively a source of schadenfreude, who was out there telling the truth?

There were several percipient commentators. But I want to mention one who may be overlooked because the public regards him as an entertainer, not a sage. I mean Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip. Adams, at his blog, has been providing some of the most original and most penetrating commentary on the whole Trump phenomenon.

I was, I admit, a little taken aback when I first encountered his description of Trump as a “Master Persuader” (see here, for example, or here), but the more I think about it, the more right I think he is. Trump on the stump was not articulate in any traditional sense. He was repetitious, digressive, given to stumbling about in sentence fragments. But he honed a message that resonated deeply with the voters.

Adams noted the following in a column posted yesterday:

If you believe Trump’s skill for persuasion wasn’t the key variable in his win, you have to imagine some other candidate beating Clinton with the same set of policies as Trump. Personally, I can’t imagine it.

I commend Adams’ blog to you: among other things, he shows that the people who are protesting against Trump are not really protesting against Trump.

They’re protesting against a hallucination they call “Trump” that has almost nothing to do with the man who is now the president-elect.

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Columbia University Plans to Provide Sanctuary, Financial Help for Undocumented Students By Debra Heine

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

Fearing a “crack-down” on illegal immigration in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, Columbia University has declared itself to be a safe space for undocumented students.

According to the Columbia Daily Spectator, the university plans “to provide sanctuary and financial support for undocumented students as many face concerns about immigration policy under President-elect Donald Trump.”

Via The Hill:

Provost John Coatsworth said in an email sent to students and teachers Monday that the university would not let immigration officials onto its campus without a warrant or provide the information of undocumented students to authorities without a court-ordered subpoena.

If the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is terminated — as Trump has threatened to do — the university said it would increase financial aid and other support to undocumented students who lose the right to work.

Trump’s victory has “prompted intense concern for the values we hold dear and for members of our community who are apprehensive about what the future holds,” the provost said in the email.

“The experience of undocumented students at the College and Columbia Engineering, from the time they first seek admission through their graduation, will not be burdened in any way by their undocumented status,” he said.

University President Lee Bollinger said the university is in a period where it doesn’t know what will happen to “a lot of students and faculty and staff with respect to immigration policy.

“There are lots of areas that are uncertain and it’s a deeply puzzling and concerning time,” he said in a statement.

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Hundreds March in Support of St. Louis Police Officer Who Was Shot in the Face in Ambush Attack By Debra Heine

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

A march in support of a wounded St. Louis Metropolitan Police sergeant drew hundreds of participants Monday night, 24 hours after the officer was shot in the face without provocation.

St. Louis Alderman Donna Baringer helped lead the march, which began at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in south St. Louis and went to the intersection where the 46-year-old officer was ambushed.

The unnamed officer was sitting at a stoplight in his patrol car Sunday night when a car pulled up next to him and a man inside fired at him, hitting him twice in the face. Amazingly, the officer was not critically injured and is now recovering at home.

Via Fox2Now:

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson shook the hands of people who lined up outside the church. He told them their presence makes, “all the difference in the world.”

Dotson said the wounded officer is now recovering at home.

One woman who stood in line is the wife of a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Officer and a friend of the wounded officer.

“We read a lot of unkind things towards police officers and it’s hard to be a police officer’s family right now,” she said. “But it means a lot to see everybody come together.”

“I’ve talked to a lot of spouses of police officers who say that could have been my husband, that could have been my significant other,” said Dotson.

The rally ended with a moment of silence and the crowd singing “Let there be Peace on Earth.” Dotson said the show of support should go a long way to helping officers do their jobs.

Chief Dotson told reporters that this neighborhood happens to be where the unnamed officer lives and that St. Gabriel’s is “very close to him.”

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GW Students: Cops Protecting Us Is an ‘Act of Violence’ Because Police Union Endorsed Trump The students issued a list of demands. By Katherine Timpf

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

Several student groups at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., sent a letter to administrators claiming that the police protecting them on campus is an “act of violence” because a police union endorsed Donald Trump.

The letter, which was obtained by the College Fix, is titled “Demands for Our Campus by Concerned Students.” (Yes . . . demands.)

The relevant section states:

“The university must re-channel its resources and money to its fundamental requirement: to protect its students. This safety must not depend on the University’s police. The Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the United States, has formally endorsed President-Elect Donald Trump. The FOP includes over 10,000 members in Washington D.C., many of which have jurisdiction over GW’s campus. Placing us in these officers’ care is an act of violence, especially for Black students.”

“The University must protect its students, instead, by dramatically increasing financial aid, emergency funds, health care resources, health insurance grants, and discretionary funds available to low-income students. It must create and/or dramatically increase funding for the community centers like the Multicultural Student Services Center for people of color and marginalized students. It must increase funding for Mental Health Services and expand hiring to candidates that are of color and specialize in race-related mental health concerns.”

Now, it’s important to note that it’s not clear from the language in the letter whether these kids want the cops to stop protecting them or not. It does state that campus police protection is an “act of violence,” that their “safety must not depend on the University’s police,” and that the university must increase funding to other areas “instead” — but we can’t be sure if they’re saying that they feel that the university is depending only on the police — and that it should pay more attention to other areas as well — or if they’re saying that it must not depend on the police at all. In either case, though, their argument is ridiculous.

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The Left’s Double Standard Discounts Cop-Killings Where is the progressive outrage when police officers are murdered? By David French

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

One year ago this Sunday, a man named Robert Lewis Dear attacked a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colo. During the assault and resulting standoff, he shot and killed three people and wounded nine. While he suffered — like many mass shooters — from mental-health issues, his motives seemed clear. In court, he shouted that he was a “warrior for the babies.” In a rambling interview after his arrest, he allegedly said “no more baby parts” and made other statements indicating that his terrorist attack was motivated by an opposition to abortion.

The incident immediately kicked off yet another “national conversation,” this one about “Christian terrorism” and the threat of pro-life speech. Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, accused pro-life groups of igniting a “firestorm of hate.” She claimed that pro-life activists “knew there could be these types of consequences” yet “ratcheted up the rhetoric anyway.” Over at Patheos, atheist writer Dan Arel wrote a widely shared piece proclaiming Christian terrorism “a bigger threat to U.S. freedom than Islamic extremism.” ThinkProgress made sure to label the violence specifically Christian and went on to repeat what was (before San Bernardino and Orlando) a favorite left-wing talking point: that right-wing extremists had killed more Americans since 9/11 than Islamic terrorists.

After Dear’s horrific attack, the National Abortion Federation listed a total of eleven anti-abortion murders and 26 attempted murders since 1993. The rate of killings works out to roughly one death every four years since Roe v. Wade. Each death is inexcusable. Each attack is evil. It’s a sad toll, to be sure. But it can hardly be mentioned in the same breath as jihadist violence.

Fast-forward one year from Dear’s attack. Last weekend, four police officers were shot on a “bloody Sunday” for our nation’s law enforcement, three of them in what appeared to be targeted, ambush-style attacks. In San Antonio, an assassin killed a police officer and sped away. In St. Louis, a man shot a passing officer in the face and was later killed in a gun battle with other cops. In Sanibel, Fla., an officer was shot as he sat in his patrol car after a traffic stop.

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Senator Jeff Sessions Will Be the Restorative Attorney General We Need America needs an attorney general and a Department of Justice that will enforce the law. By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on November 22nd, 2016

I have only one complaint regarding the splendid news that President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) to be the next attorney general of the United States: He is such a valuable legislator, he may be irreplaceable in the Senate.

But that’s alright. The Senate is going to be the Senate. Plus, there are talented young conservatives with strong legal backgrounds there, so hope springs that one can step into Jeff’s big shoes.

By contrast, the Justice Department, the institution in which I proudly spent most of my professional life as a lawyer, is in crisis. For eight years, we have had not the rule of law but a Ruler of Law — the imperial president, Barack Obama, aided and abetted by his hyper-political courtiers Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, derelict in the fundamental duty of his office to execute the laws faithfully.

The Obama Justice Department has been the most politicized in the nation’s history. It has weaponized the law against the president’s political adversaries and scapegoats, while insulating the president’s allies against investigation and prosecution. It has made progressive political activism the touchstone of Justice Department hiring, stacking various departmental sections with social-justice warriors who see the law as their arsenal to achieve fundamental societal transformation. It has exploited the legal process as an extortionate tool to shakedown deep-pocketed institutions for the purpose of funding progressive rabble-rousers. It has used law-enforcement to craft political narratives that, for example, propped up Obama’s “blame the video” fraud after the Benghazi massacre; framed the nation’s financial institutions for the mortgage meltdown, to the exclusion of reckless government policies; and undermined Second Amendment rights while getting federal agents killed (see the “Fast and Furious” debacle, over which Holder was held in contempt of Congress). It has injected racial discrimination into the enforcement of civil-rights laws in blatant violation of the equal-protection principles those laws are supposed to assure. It has exhibited a contempt for Congress and a propensity to obstruct legislative oversight that would have made the Nixon administration blush. It has repeatedly engaged in appalling prosecutorial misconduct and then lied to federal judges to cover it up. It has not only refused to enforce the immigration laws and sued to prevent sovereign states from enforcing them, but has also endorsed the president’s claimed power to ignore congressional statutes. It is abetting a war on the nation’s police departments, seeking to nationalize them under the guise of baseless and ruinously divisive smears that cops are hunting down African-American men, and that the justice system is rigged against black people.