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October 2016

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The NAACP’s Disgrace The civil-rights group votes to keep minorities trapped in poverty.

By on October 17th, 2016

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has a storied history, but many organizations outlive their moral purpose and it’s now clear this one has. The civil-rights outfit has come down firmly on the side of trapping poor minority children in education failure factories.

On Saturday the NAACP’s national board voted to ratify a resolution adopted at its 2016 national convention calling for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools. Considering the state of urban K-12 education, this is the equivalent of opposing Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The NAACP is so blinded by ideology that it is endorsing separate and unequal education for poor minority children for years to come.

The NAACP’s statement Saturday shows how out of touch its well-to-do board members are with American education. It calls for a ban on new charters until “charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools.”

Hello? Inner-city schools are the definition of unaccountable as they promote failure year after year. Charters should be held accountable, and some charter operators have done a poor job. But they can be and are shut down. The proof of charter performance are the long waiting lists in most cities to get in. Parents vote for charters with their feet when spaces are available.

The NAACP statement also wants a charter ban until “public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system.” But charters are public schools, albeit without the union and tenure rules that retard student learning. A 2015 Stanford study found that urban charters on average provide 40 more days of learning in math and 28 days in reading than comparable traditional schools. The NAACP rejects this evidence of educational advancement in favor of bowing to the union desire for political control. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Public piety, private contempt for Hillary Clinton and aides By Mercedes Schlapp –

By on October 16th, 2016

In public, Hillary Clinton talks about how she would represent all Americans and pushes the “Stronger Together” campaign theme. But behind closed doors, there is no room for people of faith in her America. Privately, the Democratic nominee and her campaign advisers are pushing a liberal agenda hostile to religion and targeting faith organizations that do not adapt to their liberal “religion.”

The Clinton campaign is no friend of the cause of religious liberty. Internal emails exposed by WikiLeaks showed how her top campaign aides mock believers and view evangelicals and Catholics as backward in their beliefs. Mrs. Clinton herself even said publicly “deep-seated cultural codes and religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”
Well, her staff certainly seemed ready and willing to do just that, particularly Chief of Staff John Podesta.

Top Hillary Clinton advisers ridiculed individuals for raising their children Catholic, referring to Catholics as being “systematic in thought and severely backwards.” It was disturbing to read about how liberals characterize conservative Catholics as being responsible for an “amazing bastardization of faith.”

Catholics and evangelicals should be troubled by Mrs. Clinton’s hidden agenda to influence and alter the tenets of Christian and Catholic orthodoxy. Perhaps what is most disturbing is that Mrs. Clinton’s team will pander publicly on the stump to Catholics, Christians, Southerners and Hispanics, and then take a very different stance behind closed doors from the comfort of their keyboards. There they express vicious contempt for the very voters they need to win the election.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The United Nations Is Run By A Bunch Of Depraved Totalitarians, Villainous Barbarians, And Anti-Semitic Scum by David Harsany

By on October 16th, 2016

The United Nations (UNESCO, to be specific) recently adopted an anti-Israel resolution that disregarded the Jewish connection to the faith’s two holiest sites, the Temple Mount and Western Wall. The motion was supported by 24 nations, including Russia and China. Only six countries opposed it.

Now, the UN is too impotent to make history, much less redraft it. Still, it’s never a waste of time to remind people of its long record of empowering cheerleaders and perpetrators of violence against Jews.
It’s not merely that UN organizations like the “human rights commission” or UNESCO are often led by Islamic supremacists, but that the majority of first-world nations have — with few exceptions, like the United States and the United Kingdom — been enablers of anti-Semitism for over 50 years.

This new motion, which claims freedom of worship has been curtailed by “escalating aggressions and illegal measures,” was submitted by the Palestinians and backed by various other twelfth-century strongholds like Morocco (where it’s illegal to possess a Bible written in Arabic), Algeria (where Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men and insulting Muhammad is punishable by death), Iran (with restrictions too long to list), Pakistan (where the death penalty or life in prison is mandated for apostasy), and Sudan (where converting to Christianity is punishable by death.)

Did I mention UNESCO is an organization that claims it encourages “international peace and universal respect for human rights”? Why would the United States lend its credibility to such a sham?

For those of you unfamiliar with the specifics of this effort: The UN has long fueled the false hope of Palestinians that they will rule an ethnically cleansed, Judenfrei West Bank (regrettably, a position embraced by United States, as well) with Jerusalem as its capital. Since the very case for a modern Palestinian state is built on a historical myth (read Benny Morris’s recent Haaretz piece debunking the biggest myth of Israel’s founding), historical fiction has been an enduring feature of anti-Israel doctrine.

When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited his religion’s holiest site in September 2000, Arabs used it as a pretext to launch the Second Intifada. Anti-Israel activists still talk about this Sharon visit as if the man were leading the Crusaders towards Mecca. Most often, though, Israel does what it can to avoid irritating the prickly sensibilities of Arabs offended by the sight of Jews or Christians. The site itself is administrated by an Islamic trust, not Israel. Politicians are told not to go there. And so on.

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Daniel J. Flynn :The FBI in open revolt against a deceitful director.

By on October 16th, 2016

James Comey presides over an FBI in revolt over his leadership, a former U.S. attorney tells The American Spectator, and pursues “paranoid, delusional, and vindictive” measures to prevent negative information leaking out to the public.

“I know that inside the FBI there is a revolt,” Joseph diGenova tells The American Spectator. “There is a revolt against the director. The people inside the bureau believe the director is a dirty cop. They believe that he threw the [Hillary Clinton email] case. They do not know what he was promised in return. But the people inside the bureau who were involved in the case and who knew about the case are talking to former FBI people expressing their disgust at the conduct of the director.”

The loss of faith in the bureau chief stems in part from a dishonest rendering of the decision not to indict Mrs. Clinton as unanimous rather than unilateral and in part from the bureau’s decision to destroy evidence in the case and grant blanket immunity to Clinton underlings for no possible prosecutorial purpose.

“There is a consensus among the employees that the director has lost all credibility and that he cannot lead the bureau,” diGenova explains. “They are comparing him to L. Patrick Gray, the disgraced former FBI director who threw Watergate papers into the Potomac River. The resistance to the director has made the agency incapable of action. It has been described to me as a depression within the agency unlike anything that anyone has ever seen within the bureau. The director’s public explanation for the unorthodox investigation are viewed by people in the bureau as sophomoric and embarrassing.”

Comey maintained in July that he came to the decision to recommend not indicting Clinton for the inclusion of classified material in 110 emails stored on a private server based on an “entirely apolitical and professional” investigation despite conceding that others in a similar spot would face “consequences” and that “evidence of potential violations” existed. He insisted then, “No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear.”

But agents trained to sniff out malfeasance smell something rotten here.

“When the director said that it was a unanimous decision not to recommend prosecution, that was a lie,” diGenova points out. “In fact, the people involved in the case were outraged at his decision, which he made by himself. When people realized that he was lying publicly about their role and when they knew he had approved of the destruction of laptops that were subject to congressional subpoena, that flipped the switch.”

Critics of the FBI and the broader handling of the case by the Justice Department remain skeptical over investigators’ ostensible belief in Clinton’s claim that she “lost” 13 Blackberry devices and did not understand that documents marked “C” meant confidential. Decisions to grant Clinton aide Cheryl Mills attorney-client privilege in a case involving her, to destroy her laptop and with it any evidence desired by Congress, and to limit the investigation’s search to documents from before January 31, 2015 to obstruct any possible obstruction of justice case against Mills also similarly baffled. Direct evidence of Clinton hiding public business on a private server (and thereby making it easier for enemy governments to see what the American government could not) and “bleaching” her hard drive after the story became public presented the FBI clear evidence of wrongdoing. But authorities sought to protect rather than prosecute the malefactors.

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The Vatican Submits to Islam (2006-2016) by Giulio Meotti

By on October 16th, 2016

“[Pope Benedict XVI] has has doubted publicly that it [Islam] can be accommodated in a pluralistic society… and tempered his support for a programme of inter-religious dialogue run by Franciscan monks at Assisi. He has embraced the view of Italian moderates and conservatives that the guiding principle of inter-religious dialogue must be reciprocità. That is, he finds it naive to permit the building of a Saudi-funded mosque, Europe’s largest, in Rome, while Muslim countries forbid the construction of churches and missions”. – Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times.

In that lecture, Benedict did what in the Islamic world is forbidden: freely discussing faith. He said that God is different from Allah.

Since then, apologies to the Islamic world have become the official Vatican policy. Pope Francis denied that Islam itself is violent and claimed that the potential for violence lies within every religion, including Catholicism. Previously, Pope Francis said there is “a world war” but denied that Islam has any role in it.

“It is clear that Muslims have an ultimate goal: conquering the world…But we find it hard to recognize this reality and to respond by defending the Christian faith (…) I have heard several times an Islamic idea: ‘what we failed to do with the weapons in the past we are doing today with the birth rate and immigration’. The population is changing. If this keeps up, in countries like Italy, the majority will be Muslim (…) And what is the most important achievement? Rome”. — Monsignor Raymond Burke, US Catholic leader.

If 9/11 was the declaration of jihad against the West, 9/12 will be remembered as one of the most dramatic knee-bends of the Western cultural submission to Islam.

On September 12th 2006, Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) landed in Bavaria, Germany, where he was born and first taught theology. He was expected to deliver a lecture in front of the academic community at the University of Regensburg. That lesson would go down to history as the most controversial papal speech of the last half-century.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Soviet-Palestinian Lie by Judith Bergman

By on October 16th, 2016

“The PLO was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for ‘liberation’ organizations.” — Ion Mihai Pacepa, former chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Romania.

“First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat’s birth in Cairo, and replaced them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth.” — Ion Mihai Pacepa.

“[T]he Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep… We had only to keep repeating our themes — that the United States and Israel were ‘fascist, imperial-Zionist countries’ bankrolled by rich Jews.” — Yuri Andropov, former KGB chairman.

As early as 1965, the USSR had formally proposed in the UN a resolution that would condemn Zionism as colonialism and racism. Although the Soviets did not succeed in their first attempt, the UN turned out to be an overwhelmingly grateful recipient of Soviet bigotry and propaganda; in November 1975, Resolution 3379 condemning Zionism as “a form of racism and racial discrimination” was finally passed.

The recent discovery that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), was a KGB spy in Damascus in 1983, was discarded by many in the mainstream media as a “historical curiosity” — except that the news inconveniently came out at the time that President Vladimir Putin was trying to organize new talks between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Predictably, the Palestinian Authority immediately dismissed the news. Fatah official Nabil Shaath denied that Abbas was ever a KGB operative, and called the claim a “smear campaign.”

The discovery, far from being a “historical curiosity,” is an aspect of one of many pieces in the puzzle of the origins of 20th and 21st century Islamic terrorism. Those origins are almost always obfuscated and obscured in ill-concealed attempts at presenting a particular narrative about the causes of contemporary terrorism, while decrying all and any evidence to the contrary as “conspiracy theories.”

There is nothing conspiratorial about the latest revelation. It comes from a document in the Mitrokhin archives at the Churchill Archives Center at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Vasily Mitrokhin was a former senior officer of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence service, who was later demoted to KGB archivist. At immense risk to his own life, he spent 12 years diligently copying secret KGB files that would not otherwise have become available to the public (the KGB foreign intelligence archives remain sealed from the public, despite the demise of the Soviet Union). When Mitrokhin defected from the Russia in 1992, he brought the copied files with him to the UK. The declassified parts of the Mitrokhin archives were brought to the public eye in the writings of Cambridge professor Christopher Andrew, who co-wrote The Mitrokhin Archive (published in two volumes) together with the Soviet defector. Mitrokhin’s archives led, among other things, to the discovery of many KGB spies in the West and elsewhere.

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Clinton Aide Discussed ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Deal with FBI to Reclassify Emails By Rick Moran

By on October 16th, 2016

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard has seen some FBI documents that have potential bombshell information.

Senior Clinton aide Patrick Kennedy apparently tried to make a deal with the FBI to reclassify emails that were marked “classified” in exchange for approving overseas posts for FBI agents.

BREAKING: A senior State Dept official discussed a “quid pro quo” w/the FBI in exchange for reclassification of HRC emails, per FBI docs.
— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) October 15, 2016

The FBI refused to play ball:

FBI officials, including CT Dir Michael Steinbach, nixed the arrangement and refused to change the classification of the HRC emails.
— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) October 15, 2016

Kennedy also asked FBI to make one sensitive HRC email “B9” FOIA exempt so it was “never to be seen again,” per FBI docs.
— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) October 15, 2016

Patrick Kennedy was Clinton’s “fixer” at the State Department, helping to facilitate access to Clinton for Clinton Foundation donors. He was also the point man for Clinton in the Benghazi investigation and played an important role in the email scandal.

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Andrew McCarthy:Podesta Leaks: The Obama-Clinton E-mails

By on October 16th, 2016

Among the most noteworthy of the hacked e-mails from John Podesta’s accounts is an exchange in which Podesta consults Clinton consigliere Cheryl Mills about the private e-mail exchanges between President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As readers may recall, I have long maintained (see here and here) that the principal reason why Mrs. Clinton was not prosecuted, despite a mountain of evidence that she committed felony mishandling of classified information, is the fact that Obama engaged in the same kind of misconduct. The president’s use of a private, non-secure channel to discuss sensitive matters with high level officials may not have been systematic, as Mrs. Clinton’s was. (Obama’s disturbing use of an alias, however, suggests that Clinton was not the only one he was privately e-mailing.) Nevertheless, the fact that the president was e-mailing Clinton means he not only participated in her misconduct but also that the Obama-Clinton e-mails would have been admissible evidence in any criminal trial of Clinton.

For the parties to prove such culpable conduct on the president’s part in a high-profile criminal trial would have been profoundly embarrassing to him, to say the least. Therefore, it was never going to happen. As I’ve noted before, after exclaiming, “How is that not classified?” upon being shown an Obama-Clinton e-mail by the FBI, Hillary’s confidant Huma Abedin asked agents if she could have a copy of the exchange. She obviously realized that if Obama had been communicating on Clinton’s non-secure server system, no one else who had done so was going to be prosecuted for it.

We now know that Podesta was very concerned about the Obama-Clinton e-mails and turned to Mills for advice. His succinct e-mail to Mills is dated March 4, 2015 (at 8:41 p.m.), and he entitled it “Special Category.” He stated:

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Bill Clinton received $1 million ‘birthday present’ from ISIS funder By James Lewis

By on October 15th, 2016

The Gulf sheikhdom Qatar is a major ISIS and world terrorism sponsor. It is a little disturbing that the Sheikhs of Qatar gave Bill Clinton a one million dollar birthday present.

The WikiLeaks document dump of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta has revealed Qatar’s previous desire to give her husband a $1 million “birthday” present.

Thousands of emails leaked by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s nonprofit organization continue to embarrass Democrat presidential hopeful Mrs. Clinton. The latest email thread shows an aide discussing conversations with ambassadors from Qatar, Brazil, Peru, Malawi, and Rwanda while in the nation’s capital.

“[Qatar] would like to see WJC ‘for five minutes’ in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC’s birthday in 2011,” an employee at The Clinton Foundationsaid to numerous aides, including Doug Brand. “Qatar would welcome our suggestions for investments in Haiti — particularly on education and health. They have allocated most of their $20 million but are happy to consider projects we suggest. I’m collecting input from CF Haiti team.”

Even more disturbing is that he took it, knowing very well that Arab politicians expect a good return on their bhaksheesh.

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Trump Is Right to Point Out That Clinton Should Be Prosecuted His rhetoric is overblown, but he’s correct that Hillary should be held to account for criminal conduct. By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on October 15th, 2016

With due respect, the estimable Charles Krauthammer is way off base in his weekly column, addressing Donald Trump’s “threat, if elected, to put Hillary Clinton in jail.” (The headline refers to this threat as a “promise,” but I don’t take that to be quite what Charles — or, for that matter, Trump — is saying.) I wrote about this topic right after Trump raised it in the second presidential debate, in response to Trump detractors who posited the claim that Krauthammer now advances: viz., Trump is criminalizing politics with threats to persecute political opponents. I generally agree with these detractors regarding the GOP nominee’s flaws and antics; on this, however, their comparisons of Trump to brutal dictators are so beyond the pale they make Trump seem tame.

Krauthammer is right that Trump has gone too far in his rhetoric. Yet, he overstates the case in suggesting that Trump is breaching important political boundaries. While he describes these as boundaries of “discourse” and “democratic decency,” Dr. K implies that they involve something even more fundamental, and thus that the breach is more perilous.

Mrs. Clinton appears to have committed serious crimes that undermined both national security and recordkeeping rules designed to promote accountability in government. If you want to talk about a truly profound threat to democratic norms, that’s the place to start. Obviously, these offenses are not just relevant but essential to the political case that should be made against Clinton, and would be by any opponent, not just by the unconventional, undisciplined Trump. Also pertinent is the fact that government officials who engage in Clinton’s type of misconduct do go to jail — to refrain from stating this would be to diminish the gravity of the crimes.

Moreover, even Krauthammer concedes that Clinton deserved to be prosecuted: “FBI director James Comey’s recommendation not to pursue charges was both troubling and puzzling.” Consequently, I don’t see why anyone, including Trump, should be faulted for asserting that there appears to be strong evidence that Mrs. Clinton has committed egregious offenses, which warrant prosecution and would call for imprisonment if she were convicted after a fair trial. Unless I am reading him wrong, that is Charles’s position on the matter — otherwise, why the dig at Comey?

Where Trump has overstepped is in his articulation of these points, not the fact that he is making them.

Political rhetoric inevitably involves a degree of exaggeration, and we must distinguish it from the realm of law-enforcement, in which officials are obliged to be circumspect. At the Republican convention, the most effective speech was New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s scathing indictment (in the rhetorical sense) of Mrs. Clinton’s misdeeds. It prompted the “lock her up!” chants that have punctuated Trump campaign appearances ever since. Now, when Americans say that someone ought to be “locked up” over this or that — which we say quite a lot — we are not urging an end run around the due-process protections that apply from investigation and indictment through trial and sentencing.

That goes without saying. During Obama’s 2008 campaign, his surrogate (and later his attorney general) Eric Holder called for a “reckoning” against Bush officials he depicted as guilty of war crimes and all manner of Constitution-shredding. I don’t think Mr. Holder was saying “jail now, trial later” — even if many on the left would have been delighted by such an arrangement.

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