ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Norway’s Comeuppance After years of official anti-Semitism, Israel reacts. Bruce Bawer

Posted By on August 31st, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/norways-comeuppance-bruce-bawer/

“The relationship between Norway and Israel,” wrote Trond Ellingsen the other day at Document, Norway’s leading alternative news website, “is now at a historically low level.” We’ll get around to the reason in a minute, but first let’s just note that that’s saying a lot, given that antisemitism on a very profound level goes back a long way in the exquisite land of the fjords.

The Norwegian Constitution, drafted in 1814, originally contained this sentence: “Jews are still excluded from admission to the kingdom.” Knut Hamsun, probably Norway’s most illustrious novelist, was a Nazi. During World War II, it was the Norwegian police who, obedient to the German occupiers, rounded up Jews to be sent to death camps; in neighboring Denmark, by contrast, the police played a key role in the valiant effort – in which virtually all Danish gentiles took part – to sequester Jews from the Nazis and then help smuggle them to safety in Sweden. As a result, while only thirty-eight of the 773 Norwegian Jews who were shipped to Auschwitz survived the war, most of Denmark’s 7800 or so Jews made it to Sweden; of the 464 who were captured and, in keeping with a special agreement with the Danish authorities, sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt instead of to death camps, 425 returned home alive. 

Yes, Norway was quick to recognize the state of Israel. But hatred for that country, and for Jews generally, has flourished in Norwegian politics ever since.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bill Barr – All-In With the Mar-a-Lago Raid The defender of the deep state can be no friend of the people. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on August 31st, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/trumps-attorney-general-explains-raid-trumps-lloyd-billingsley/

“Number one is that I think a lot of the attacks on the FBI are over the top because a decision like this is not made by the FBI,” former Attorney General William Barr told the Bari Weiss podcast on August 25.

“In fact, I don’t think the FBI would push a decision that it’s best to go in and search and obtain those documents after being jerked around for a year and a half. The decision would be made at the Department of Justice, by subordinates of the AG, and ultimately signed off on by the AG. The FBI would be told to go and execute it. I think the idea that the FBI is the problem here is misplaced.”

The former AG was more disturbed by “the constant pandering to outrage” on the right, without discussion of whether the outrage had any merit. The FBI seized Trump’s passports, leaving the impression that the former president had committed a crime and was now a flight risk. FBI agents also rummaged through the closets of Melania Trump, an act of pure intimidation. With Trump attorneys forced outside, the FBI could easily have planted or destroyed information. If that is not cause for outrage, it’s hard to imagine what might qualify.

Weiss brought up the “Russiagate” episode, as the host explained, “the idea that Donald Trump was a compromised agent of Moscow. That there were deep connections between Trump’s people and Russian intelligence. That the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russians, including by hacking Democratic National Committee emails.” Barr was all over it.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

R.I.P. Gorby, the Man Who Watched Others Tear Down the Iron Curtain By Michael Brendan Dougherty

Posted By on August 31st, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/r-i-p-gorby-the-man-who-watched-others-tear-down-the-iron-curtain/

Mikhail Gorbachev was born in 1931 and was old enough to remember the suffering of his family during World War II and the great Stalinist purges, in which one of his grandfathers was tortured and another executed. Many obituarists will focus on his tentative reforms of the Soviet Union, and rightly so. He allowed more political freedom in elections, though less than any of us would recognize as legitimate. He reestablished relations with the Vatican, eased up on official state atheism, and conducted successful arms treaties with the United States. He broke the taboos on talking openly about Russian history and the quality of life in the Soviet Union.

But all this was not enough to save Russia from the collapse.

In this space, it is important to state clearly that Gorbachev’s dull optimism and his dull passivity was turned into the end of the Soviet Union by more nimble statesmen like Hungary’s prime minister Miklós Németh, and German chancellor Helmut Kohl, with big assists from forward-seeing activists like Poland’s Lech Walesa and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Németh first and Kohl later would present one fait accompli after another to the cautiously optimistic Americans (Bush and Secretary of State James Baker) and the dithering and overwhelmed Gorbachev. The statesmen and political movements of Central and Eastern Europe wanted to get into Western political structures like NATO and the European Community faster than the White House or Brussels wanted to accept them. Some obituarists will claim that Gorbachev tore down the Iron Curtain. No. The end of the Soviet Union and reunification of Germany as a full NATO member was a stampede through a door that Gorbachev was unwilling to bolt shut again. But his optimism and passivity in the face of fast-moving events prevented these days from becoming the bloodbath that history would lead us to expect during a European security realignment. With the exception of Lithuania, most Soviet member states were allowed to escape peacefully. This was a miracle, and Gorbachev can be thanked inasmuch as his awareness of his and Russia’s then limitations allowed the Cold War to end without going hot again.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

It’s Time For Voters To Unleash Their Inner Howard Beale :“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad.” — Howard Beale, “Network“

Posted By on August 31st, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/31/its-time-for-voters-to-channel-their-inner-howard-beale/

“Voters had better get mad, stay mad until November, and kick the left out of every leadership position it holds. Because Biden and Co. are setting the nation on a road that will lead to disaster. If voters don’t get mad now and force a course correction, they will only have themselves to blame when the inevitable crash comes.”

The mainstream press sees a glimmer of hope in recent polls showing President Joe Biden’s approval rating inching up and Democrats’ prospects looking brighter for the midterm elections. Don’t let yourself, or your friends, family, and neighbors be conned.

Biden’s string of “victories” includes getting a massive growth-killing tax-and-spend bill through Congress and canceling about $1 trillion worth of student loan debt to benefit a small minority of college-educated Americans.

The only thing these recent events have in common is that they are designed specifically to improve Democrats’ chances in November.

These are awfully big price tags for vote buying. And you are paying for it.

So why isn’t the public mad as hell?

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Russia’s Mariupol Show Trials The Kremlin subjects prisoners of war to torture and sham trials.

Posted By on August 31st, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-mariupol-show-trials-ukraine-prisoners-of-war-denis-pushilin-vladimir-putin-11661894589?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Ukrainian prisoners of war already face deprivation and torture, and Russia now plans to subject them to a show trial that violates the laws of war and international agreements that Russia has signed.

In May some 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers under siege in Mariupol surrendered to save the lives of severely wounded comrades. Last week Denis Pushilin, the Russia-backed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said a tribunal in Mariupol would hear some 80 cases of war crimes.

The trials will focus on captured members of the Azov Regiment of Ukraine’s national guard. Formed in 2014, the unit was accused of including anti-Semites. The regiment says it has since dishonorably discharged extremists in its ranks, and its members now include Jewish soldiers. The unit fought alongside Ukrainian marines and other soldiers in Mariupol, and their stand pinned down Russian troops that could have been deployed elsewhere.

But the Kremlin claims it is “de-Nazifying” Ukraine, and it is using the Azov Regiment as propaganda to justify the invasion. In August Russia’s Supreme Court designated the Azov Regiment a terrorist organization, paving the way for lengthy jail sentences for its captured members. Leonid Slutsky, a deputy of the Russian Duma, has said Azov Regiment members “do not deserve to live.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Diversity Over Careers at Duke By Lincoln Brown

Posted By on August 30th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/culture/lincolnbrown/2022/08/30/diversity-over-careers-at-duke-n1625216

The Career Center at Duke University was slated to get some new digs. This is a good thing since its function is to help shepherd students into actual careers, which is ostensibly why people go to college in the first place. The career center’s page states:

“The Career Center, working in partnership with faculty and colleagues, provides career advising to all Duke undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni. Recognizing the unique talents and needs of each individual, the Career Center encourages students to make the most of their Duke experience by accessing relevant campus resources, developing career interests and values, and establishing and maintaining important human relationships with their peers as well as Duke faculty, staff, and alumni. The Career Center works to build and maintain relationships with alumni and employers who can provide internships and learning opportunities, entry-level positions, and opportunities for experienced professionals.”

Presumably, accessing the Career Center can help you get a job so you can make money, eat, rent an apartment, buy a home, contribute to society, and allegedly pay your student loans. Okay, go ahead and laugh.

According to the Duke Chronicle, the Career Center was supposed to take over the space on the first floor of the Bryan Center that had been previously occupied by the Office of Student Affairs. That did not sit well with the student body, which claimed the space had been promised to student groups that had been demanding a place to gather for decades.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden to Warn that Republicans Will Destroy the Country in Prime-time Nationwide Address By Rick Moran

Posted By on August 30th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/08/30/biden-to-warn-that-republicans-will-destroy-the-country-in-prime-time-nationwide-address-n1625223

Joe Biden is going to give a prime-time address to the nation Thursday evening in order to warn us that Republicans want to destroy America.

What does he mean by that? Last week, the president addressed a Democratic National Committee event in Maryland where he spelled out exactly the line of attack against Republicans he will deliver on Thursday night.

“They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy,” he said. “This is why, in this moment, those of you who love this country — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — we must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving America than the MAGA Republicans are to destroying America.”

Sheesh. Laying it on kind of thick, isn’t he?

“Vote for Democrats or you’re dead” is kind of a silly campaign slogan. But it’s what Democrats have been saying for months — ever since it became clear that Biden had so trashed the economy and tarnished our reputation overseas with his incompetent botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that Democrats were going to get a huge shellacking in the midterms.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Pay Up for the Damage You’ve Caused, Oberlin By George Leef

Posted By on August 30th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pay-up-for-the-damage-youve-caused-oberlin/

Back in 2016, a case began when administrators from Oberlin College aided students in defaming Gibson’s Bakery, unjustly smearing it as racist. Eventually, the jury sided with the plaintiffs, ordering Oberlin to pay a large damage sum — $36 million.

Just as you’d expect, Oberlin fought on and on, hoping to find an appellate court that would overturn the jury. But it now appears that the case is done, since the supreme court of Ohio declined to entertain its last appeal. Legal Insurrection has the details here.

This is good news. College officials across America should be thinking about reining in their own woke zealots before they land in similar situations.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Mikhail Gorbachev Dies at 91: Russian Media By Diana Glebova

Posted By on August 30th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mikhail-gorbachev-dies-at-91-russian-media/

Mikhail Gorbachev, the final leader of the Soviet Union died after a long illness on Tuesday, Russian media outlet RIA reported.

Gorbachev was 91 years old.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Meghan’s empire of cringe Our identitarian era has turned a narcissist into a saint. Tom Slater

Posted By on August 30th, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/30/meghans-empire-of-cringe/

What do they see in her? That’s the question staring us in the face once again as Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, is trending once again, this time due to a toe-curling interview in the Cut and the arrival of her new podcast, Archetypes. Most Brits have been distinctly unimpressed with Markle since she and Prince Harry abandoned their royal duties in 2020, alleging they were hounded out by a racist palace, a racist press and ultimately a racist public, with zero evidence of this supposedly foul treatment. According to YouGov, just a quarter of the public holds a favourable view of Markle and she ranks 14th – just above Prince Andrew – in the list of the most popular royals. Meanwhile, the liberal media continue to treat Meghan as a hero and saintly victim, splashing ever-more adoring column inches and lavish photoshoots on her.

This new 6,409-word Cut article has to be seen to be believed. It represents a spectacular failure of self-awareness, a bottomless brunch of Californian cringe. It begins with journalist Allison Davis being welcomed into the Sussexes’ vast Montecito mansion – described as ‘the kind of big that startles you into remembering that unimaginable wealth is actually someone’s daily reality’ – before Meghan proceeds to talk about her oppressive treatment in Britain and triumphant reinvention as a sort of faux-humanitarian influencer. The couple’s multimillion-dollar deals with Spotify and Netflix – the piece hints at a new fly-on-the-wall doc in the pipeline – are presented as somewhere between acts of public service and acts of self-realisation. ‘I feel different. I feel clearer. It’s like I’m finding – not finding my voice. I’ve had my voice for a long time, but being able to use it’, Meghan says of her new podcast, aimed at challenging the sexist stereotypes that supposedly hold women back.