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December 2015

BOOKS Comments turned off

Speech Crimes on Campus The First Amendment makes a comeback at some universities.

By on December 10th, 2015

The student censors at Yale claimed a scalp—pardon the micro-aggression—this week when lecturer Erika Christakis resigned her teaching position on childhood education. She had been pilloried for asking in an email if students weren’t too sensitive if they are offended by politically incorrect Halloween costumes.

Yale’s powers-that-be ducked and covered in response, but the news on campus isn’t all bad, according to a forthcoming report by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (Fire). The foundation’s annual survey of 440 colleges—comprising 336 four-year public and 104 private institutions—finds that the share of schools maintaining “severely restrictive” speech codes has dropped to below 50% (49.3%) for the first time in the organization’s history. As many as three-quarters of colleges boasted restrictive speech codes in 2007 and 55% did as of last year.

Another positive sign: The number of schools receiving Fire’s highest “green light” rating has nearly tripled since 2006 to 22, up from 18 last year. These beacons include Purdue University, the University of Virginia and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. More than twice as many colleges have received ratings upgrades as downgrades this year.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Our Duty as American Muslims We are the only ones who can lead a winning fight against the radicalism crippling our faith. By Khurram Dara

By on December 10th, 2015

After San Bernardino, American Muslims have to come to terms with an ever more apparent truth: that we, and our mainstream Muslim brethren, are the only ones who can lead a winning fight against the radicalism crippling our faith.

What’s most troubling about the San Bernardino massacre is that Syed Farook seemed to have been, by almost all accounts, an ordinary American. He was an educated and employed 28-year-old first-generation citizen, born to Pakistani immigrants.

Like many Americans, I have a similar background, which makes the attack all the more concerning. It seems unthinkable that someone in such a position could be susceptible to radicalization. Yet we have seen this happen time and again, particularly among younger Muslims in the Middle East, Europe and now America.

Attacks like last week’s underscore the importance of countering extremist propaganda. While sophisticated attacks by terrorist groups can be effectively prevented by law enforcement and national-security measures, the truth is there isn’t much that can be done—not even stricter gun-control laws—to completely eliminate the possibility of a radicalized lone wolf wreaking havoc. Only defeating the ideology that inspires these attacks can do that. A propaganda war must be waged on radical Islam, and American Muslims have to be on the front lines for it to be credible.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Consumer Bureau Cover-Up The feds knew their data showing racial bias was false but sued anyway.

By on December 10th, 2015

Congressman David Scott recently lambasted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for its “deceitful” auto-loan regulation based on “shamefully flawed” information. Now it looks like the Georgia Democrat was being kind.

The Republican staff of the House Financial Services Committee has released a trove of documents showing that bureau officials knew their information was flawed and even deliberated on ways to prevent people outside the bureau from learning how flawed it was.

The bureau has been guessing the race and ethnicity of car-loan borrowers based on their last names and addresses—and then suing banks whenever it looks like the people the government guesses are white seem to be getting a better deal than the people it guesses are minorities. This largely fact-free prosecutorial method is the reason a bipartisan House supermajority recently voted to roll back the bureau’s auto-loan rules.
The vote occurred before the release of the House committee report, which shows that the regulators were guessing and knew that they weren’t even making good guesses. A May 2013 draft of a memo for bureau Director Richard Cordray prepared by bureau staff including Assistant Director Patrice Ficklin reported they had “reason to believe that our proxy is less accurate in identifying the race/ethnicity of particular individuals than some proprietary proxy methods that use nonpublic data.”

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It’s Too Easy for Terrorists A program that lets people from 38 countries visit the U.S. without a visa needs better security measures. By Matt A. Mayer

By on December 10th, 2015

At least four of the terrorists involved in last month’s deadly Paris attacks were French citizens. This means that, under the terms of the Visa Waiver Program, they could have legally entered the U.S. with nothing more than their passports. After Paris the Obama administration announced updates to the program, such as better tracking of “past travel to countries constituting a terrorist safe haven” and “fines from $5,000 to $50,000 for air carriers that fail to verify a traveler’s passport data.” These measures aren’t nearly enough.

The Visa Waiver Program allows as many as 20 million citizens from 38 countries—including Japan, Australia and much of Europe—to travel to the U.S. for up to 90 days without the extra layers of security attached to their procuring a visa at a U.S. consulate. The program has encouraged tourism and business that benefit America. It also allows Americans to travel abroad to these countries with minimal hassle.

But the program has two serious security gaps. The first is that the U.S. has become wholly dependent upon the competence and thoroughness of the countries that participate. Visitors’ eligibility for entry under the Visa Waiver Program is determined by the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. But a 2012 audit by the Government Accountability Office found that roughly 364,000 people reached the U.S. in 2010 “without verified ESTA approval.” This security gap, long ignored, has now become enormously important.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Behind Angela Merkel’s Open Door for Migrants Backlash against German chancellor’s pro-refugee policy mounts despite months of diplomatic arm-twisting By Marcus Walker and Anton Troianovski

By on December 10th, 2015

BERLIN—Angela Merkel had just returned to her apartment here after meeting critics of her policy of welcoming Middle East refugees, when aides phoned her with news of terrorist attacks in Paris.

The German chancellor’s open door for people fleeing war in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere had already weakened her once-unassailable popularity. She knew, says a person familiar with her thinking, that immigration opponents in Germany and Europe would want to link the Islamist terrorist threat with refugees trekking to Europe and would demand a clampdown on the mainly Muslim migrants.

Ms. Merkel’s response: to double down on her migrant policy. She emphatically reiterated her refugee-friendly stance, amping up the moral rhetoric that is infuriating many supporters and politicians of her conservative party.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN anchor: Jews carried out terror attacks, should they be barred from entering US?

By on December 10th, 2015

Anchor asks Trump supporter the question in response to his recent controversial comments about banning Muslims.

In reported cases of terror attacks, should all Jews be barred from obtaining visas in order to enter the United States?

This was a question posed by CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield Tuesday morning during an interview with former Ronald Reagan White House administration official and current Donald Trump supporter, Jeffrey Lord, when asked if his preferred presidential candidate was not applying a double standard to Muslims.

“If you supplant the word ‘Jews’ for ‘Muslims’ in a lot of the rhetoric that we’ve had this morning, I think people would find it sort of cringe-worthy and reminiscent of a really ugly time in our history,” Banfield said. “There have been Jewish terrorist attacks. Should we therefore ask no Jews to please apply for a visa?”

The CNN anchor then provided specifics examples: “From a period of 1980 to 1985 there were a reported 18 terror attacks committed in the United States by Jews, 15 of them committed by the Jewish Defense League,” Banfield said. ‘The head of the Jewish Defense league was in jail awaiting trial…accused of trying to bomb a mosque in Culver City, trying to bomb [US Congressman] Darrel Issa’s office, an Arab-American.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Trump’s ‘Racist’ Entry Restriction Policy Not Novel, But Response Is Trump’s proposal to ban the entry into US of Muslims is no more racist than similar established policies which raised no outcry by US or anyone else. By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

By on December 10th, 2015

With the country, and now, slowly parts of the rest of the world, in a state of outrage over presidential candidate Donald Trump’s controversial statement to cut off immigration and visits by foreign Muslims to the U.S., it is worth noting that Trump is not the first major figure to suggest that a certain class of humans be barred from entry into a country.

Of the following examples, however, there are two significant differences between Trump’s call and that of all the others. See if you can come up with the two differences by the end of this article.

First, what did Trump actually call for? Did he, as some claim, call for all Muslim Americans to leave? No. What he did call for was a halt to Muslim immigration and tourists into the U.S.

TRUMP’S CALL FOR A BAN

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” a campaign press release said.

The ban Trump is seeking is based on what he called “the hatred [which] is beyond comprehension.” It is his view that his proposed ban should remain in place “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

Trump called for the ban on Muslim entry into the U.S. in the wake of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino last week by two previously unknown radicalized Muslims who entered the U.S., Syed Farook and his wife, Nashfeen Malik. While few Americans ever met Malik, Farook was accepted as a “normal,” “average American,” and the two were understood to be “living the American dream,” until the moment they began blasting Farook’s co-workers and associates to death in a bloody rampage which claimed the lives of 14 and injured many more on Dec. 2, 2105.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why Has the Church Abandoned the Christians of the Middle East? by Judith Bergman

By on December 10th, 2015

Why is the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the symbolic head of 85 million Christians worldwide, expressing shock at yet another terrorist attack perpetrated by the Islamic State?

Had he paid more than just fleeting attention to his fellow Christians in Iraq and Syria, he would know that the Islamic State has been slaughtering Christians in the Middle East since 2006. How much more time did he need?

Without referring by name to the Islamic State, and speaking as if some invisible force of nature were at play here, Pope Francis I deplored “thousands of people, including many Christians, driven from their homes in a brutal manner; children dying of thirst and hunger in their flight; women kidnapped; people massacred; violence of every kind.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was interviewed recently about the Paris attacks and asked about his reaction. “Like everyone else – first shock and horror and then a profound sadness…” he replied. “Saturday morning, I was out and as I was walking I was praying and saying: ‘God, why — why is this happening?'”

Welby is the principal head of the Anglican Church and the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, which stands at around 85 million members worldwide and is the third largest communion in the world — after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is a man with an extremely high public profile, and millions of Christians looking to him for spiritual guidance.

But why is a man who is the symbolic head of 85 million Christians worldwide expressing shock at yet another terrorist attack perpetrated by the Islamic State? Had the Archbishop of Canterbury paid more than just fleeting attention to his fellow Christians in Iraq and Syria, he would know that the Islamic State has been slaughtering Christians in the Middle East since 2006. Between 2004 and 2006, before the Islamic State evolved out of Al Qaeda in Iraq, it hardly showed less zeal to root out Christianity even then.

The Archbishop had eleven years to get used to the idea of people being made homeless, exiled, tortured, raped, enslaved, beheaded and murdered for not being Muslims. How much more time did he need?

The Archbishop of Canterbury had more wisdom to offer in the interview. “The perversion of faith is one of the most desperate aspects of our world today,” he said, explaining that Islamic State terrorists have distorted their faith to the extent that they believe they are glorifying their God. But it is unclear how he is as qualified an expert in Islam as Islamic State “Caliph ” Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who possesses a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Baghdad.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

EU Makes Up Bogus Laws to Target — Guess Who? by Denis MacEoin

By on December 10th, 2015

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is fully legal under the terms of UN Resolution 242 (1967), which was carefully drafted to guarantee Israel’s rights to remain there until such time as there is a “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

When the EU states that its aim is “to ensure the respect of Union positions and commitments in conformity with international law on the non-recognition by the Union of Israel’s sovereignty over the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967,” it refuses to recognize the validity of UN Resolution 242, and it gives no proper explanation of what is meant by “sovereignty.”

As only Israeli armed forces will be required to withdraw in the event that such boundaries are created, the presence of Israeli settlements there will remain legal under the terms of the original League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which stipulates that there should be close Jewish settlement in all areas. Those Mandate provisions were incorporated in the UN Resolution 181, which established a Jewish and an Arab state.

The European Union has never demanded that China, Morocco, Russia, Pakistan or India — all with territories under dispute — label goods in ways like those demanded of Israel.

“The EU does not have a general set of rules for dealing with occupied territories, settlements or territorial administrations whose legality is not recognized by the EU. Rather, the EU has special restrictions aimed at Israel.” — Law Professors Eugene Kontorovich (Northwestern University) and Avi Bell (University of San Diego).

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BOOKS Comments turned off

EVELYN GORDON: HOW ISRAEL PROTECTS THE WEST

By on December 10th, 2015

Two news items over the past two weeks provide timely reminders of why Israel’s willingness to take military action in its own neighborhood makes it an unparalleled strategic asset for the West – including those Westerners who deplore military action and prefer to rely exclusively on diplomacy. At first glance, neither report has anything to do with Israel. Yet both underscore its vital role in Western security.

The first was a New York Times report on the Islamic State’s efforts to obtain red mercury – a material that, “when detonated in combination with conventional high explosives,” is rumored to “create the city-flattening blast of a nuclear bomb.” Proliferation experts all say red mercury is a hoax, but it’s a hoax widely believed in many corners of the globe. The terrorist group was therefore willing to pay ‘‘whatever was asked’’ to procure it, as one Islamic State official told the arms dealer he tasked with the mission. Nor was this a passing fancy: The official “kept inquiring about red mercury for more than a year … pressing for results” until he disappeared (presumably because he was killed).

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