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March 2019

Pompeo’s Contempt of Court

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/pompeos-contempt-of-court/90613/

In a week of grim news, one bright spot stands out, at least for us — Secretary of State Pompeo’s announcement that America will block members of the International Criminal Court from coming here to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan. The ICC is a threat to American sovereignty, part of a broad attack on the very idea of sovereignty being levied by world government types.

No doubt there will be those who set this down as an all too Trumpian contempt. Concern about the ICC, though, is broadly bipartisan. The court was brought into being via a treaty called the Rome Statute, adopted in 1998. America inked the parchment, but in 2000 President Clinton declared he would neither submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification nor recommend his successor do so.

The successor was President George W. Bush, who went Mr. Clinton one further. He worked with Congress to pass the American Service-Members’ Protection Act. It guards our GIs and officials from criminal prosecution by “an international criminal court to which the United States is not party.” It passed the Democratic-led Senate by a vote of 71 to 22. The opposition to the ICC was bipartisan.

Democrats May Blow It in 2020 General national opinion doesn’t conform to that of party activists. Ask President McGovern. By Ted Van Dyk

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-may-blow-it-in-2020-11552848202

In their fever to dispense with President Trump immediately, Democrats are losing sight of what Marxists called the “objective conditions” in the country and the fundamentals of presidential politics. Unless they take care, they will forfeit their chance to regain the White House in 2020 and could return congressional control to Republicans as well.

Begin with the objective conditions. The first is continuing public disenchantment with political, media, financial and cultural establishments. It is this disenchantment that brought Mr. Trump to the White House in the first place and, additionally, almost brought Sen. Bernie Sanders, not even a Democrat, the Democratic presidential nomination.

In Mr. Trump’s case, voters knew he was boorish, narcissistic, a business and financial freewheeler, a womanizer, and largely ignorant of governance and public policy. His election was wholly about disillusion with the alternatives. His former personal lawyer was no doubt right in asserting that Mr. Trump never expected to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate but ran simply to burnish his brand. Similar populist disenchantment, by the way, is plaguing establishment politicians in the U.K., France, Germany and elsewhere.

The other objective conditions—the two most important in a national general election—are those relating to national security and the economy. Ordinary voters see that Mr. Trump has destroyed the ISIS caliphate in the Middle East, has plans for phased withdrawals of American forces from Syria and Afghanistan, has challenged Russia and Iran, and is making an effort to denuclearize North Korea. They also see him attempting to confront China for its dishonest trading practices.

They may not support his Mexican wall as first proposed, but they recognize the need for border security. They also support American citizenship for immigrants who proceed lawfully. They puzzle that Democrats, rather than focusing on means to legalization, instead are attacking Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol as child torturers. They do not see or comprehend the damage Mr. Trump has done to multilateralism, alliances, carefully built international institutions, or thoughtful internal policy-making processes. They see only the externals.

THE TWISTED TRIAL AND CONVICTION OF CARDINAL GEORGE PELL OF AUSTRALIA

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/03/night-descends-on-our-age-of-reason/

Night Descends on Our Age of Reason By Peter Kurti

“From the first, Pell denied the allegations with which he was charged. As one of the two boys concerned is deceased, the jury relied solely on the testimony of a single complainant. But this testimony was confused, inconsistent, and filled with errors. Even so, the jury accepted this testimony, and Pell was convicted in relation to offences alleged to have been perpetrated against both boys.”

Searching investigations by the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Australia have helped address egregious offences committed against young and vulnerable people over many years. The Christian churches, particularly the Catholic and Anglican churches, have been forced to confront terrible harm done to minors in their charge. The consequent collapse in the moral standing of the churches in Australia has been catastrophic.

Public opinion towards senior church leaders — bishops, in particular — hardened during the Royal Commission’s enquiries. Criminal trials have led to prison sentences; and internal church investigations have resulted in bishops being deposed and, in some cases, stripped of their orders because of a proven failure to act on information about perpetrators of sexual abuse. But now a senior Australian bishop is judged to have done much worse.

The U.N. Salts the Wounds of Iranian Women By Thaddeus G. McCotter

https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/16/the-u-n-salts-the-wounds-of-iranian-women/
Anyone with a passing acquaintance with the irredeemable institution that calls itself the United Nations understand it is a global Tammany Hall that endangers the advance of human freedom and prosperity throughout our world. Perhaps, its only merit is to provide those few remaining doubters with irrefutable proof that the societal scourge of Toxic Imbecility has reached a pandemic level.

In a typical, telling display, the United Nations has salted the wounds of Iranian women by elevating Iran to its Committee on the Status of Women (“CSW”).

As the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo reports, “. . . the U.N. on Wednesday said that Iran and Nigeria, another country that is no stranger to human rights abuses, would be promoted to the international organization’s Committee on the Status of Women, which oversees abuses committed by oppressive states, such as Iran and Nigeria.”

The full brief of the CSW is more wide-ranging, per the U.N. website: “The CSW is instrumental in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women.”

Condemnations of Iran’s appointment cascaded in from sane observers, who lambasted the decision to place Iran’s misogynistic mullahs—the oppressors and butchers of Neda Agha-Soltan, Taraneh Mousavi, and all Iranian women—upon the CSW. Interestingly, as yet there appears to be no condemnations or even a whiff of criticism about the matter from some of Iran’s biggest advocates—former President “The Oracle” Obama, his former Chief of Staff Valerie Jarrett, ex-Secretary of State John Kerry, ex-Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, et al. Apparently, the plane load of $400 million and the billions in sanctions relief from the Iran nuke pact didn’t change the vile Iranian regime’s behavior, but it has silenced these “esteemed foreign policy leaders” in the face of this sick, twisted joke upon Iranian women.

Media Gorges Itself on Hatred While Ignoring Atrocities By Pedro Gonzalez

https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/16/media-gorges-itself-on-hatred-while

On a day in March, more than 40 members of a religious minority were targeted for their faith and murdered. I don’t mean the Mosque shooting in New Zealand, but the massacre of Christians in Nigeria, about which the American media was altogether unconcerned.

In the wake of the New Zealand shooting, however, New York Times “reporter” Patrick Kingsley could barely contain his glee. The New Zealand shooter, a self-described fascist, provided Kingsley with ammunition to charge President Trump, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with aiding and abetting the “Global Reach of White Extremism.” The shooter, wrote Kingsley, “highlights the contagious ways in which extreme right ideology and violence have spread in the 21st century.” Trump, Orban, Salvini, and all those who dare speak their name but to spite them, own this shooting so far as Kingsley is concerned.

A search for “Nigeria” in the Times’ archives shows that no ink has been spilled in the columns of this, America’s “newspaper of record,” for the Christians facing extermination at the hands of Muslims in that country. This is odd, isn’t it?

Local reports from Nigeria state that 35 people were killed on March 10 during an attack on Anguwan Barde. The next day, authorities estimate that 46 people were murdered in the village of Anguwan Gamu. Around 100 homes were razed. The bodies of a minister and his wife were found mutilated, floating in a river. All in all, more than 130 people were killed during one week in February, which suggests a plan to “wipe out certain communities”; namely, Christians, a minority group.

The Left Abandons American Zionism By Larry Greenfield

https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/16/the-left-abandons-

Just after midnight, on June 5, 1968, Jerusalem born-Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan murdered U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Kennedy had won the California Democratic Party presidential primary earlier that evening.

Like his brother, President John F. Kennedy, RFK repeatedly had expressed admiration and sympathy for the small Jewish state struggling against an Arab economic boycott, war, and terrorism, including in a recent prominent synagogue address.

Repeating “Kennedy Must Die,” Sirhan purposefully committed the first modern act of Arab terrorism on U.S. soil on the first anniversary of Israel’s miraculous victory in the Six Day War of 1967, when a sovereign Israel liberated Jerusalem for the first time in 2,000 years.

Remarkably, 50 years later, six of the seven U.S. Senators who are declared candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination recently voted against the anti-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions bill in the Senate, and remain mute about a rapidly rising tide of anti-Semitic rhetoric and anti-Israel views among progressives and radicals in their party.

Brexit, Trump’s wall, and the cynical inertia of the political class In our democracies, politicians won’t do what people want Roger Kimball

https://spectator.us/brexit-wall-cynical-inertia/

I had lunch yesterday with a friend from London who brought grim tidings from Albion. Like me, he is an advocate of national sovereignty. He thinks the people of the United Kingdom ought to be allowed to govern themselves. So he, again like me, is an advocate for Brexit. He had no idea what was going to happen with Brexit.

Yesterday was a busy day. I also chatted with friends about the crisis at our southern border. All honest people acknowledge that there is a crisis, that thousands upon thousands of people, most without English and without skills, are pouring over the border. Until Donald Trump became president, even the Democrats, who not without reason regard that human tsunami as a wave of embryo Democratic voters, said that something need to be done to secure the border and enforce our immigration laws. Google either Obama or Clinton on the issue. You’ll find statements indistinguishable from what Donald Trump has proposed.

After Christchurch, Remember the Victims, But Resist the Urge to Blame written by Claire Lehmann

https://quillette.com/2019/03/16/after-christchurch

The terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand—the largest terror event in Australasian history—carried out against a migrant community in a place of worship has left us all in shock. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden, has described this attack as an attack on all New Zealanders.

Part of the shock comes from the feeling that these types of events don’t happen here. Not in Australia, not in New Zealand. We are small, quiet countries, where people feel safe. Random violence is not a feature of everyday life, let alone on this scale.

People deal with shock and grief in different ways. Some people mourn. Others get angry. Many of the early reactions to the event have expressed legitimate anger about the lack of action taken over violent, right-wing extremism. Observers have been warning about the toxicity of online echo-chambers and their potential to foment hatred and motivate people to commit violence for some time now.

Much of the anger is directed at big tech companies who are seen as making a profit via the “rabbit hole” algorithm, which prompts people to consume more extreme content with each click. It is noteworthy that the Christchurch attack was live-streamed on Facebook, reposted on YouTube and discussed on Reddit before any of these platforms had a chance to react. The incentive structure which grants a psychopath instantaneous worldwide fame is powerful and real. And this will not be the last time that it is exploited.

Don’t Exploit Christchurch The New Zealand massacre was an act of pure evil, but it should not serve as an excuse to silence frank discussion about Islam and mass immigration. Bruce Bawer

https://www.city-journal.org/new-zealand-massacre

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik killed eight adults at a government office complex in Oslo with a truck bomb and then gunned down 69 people, mostly members of the youth division of the Norwegian Labor Party, at a summer camp on the nearby island of Utøya. Before setting out on his murder spree, Breivik posted online a “manifesto”—consisting largely of cut-and-pasted material from other sources—in which he accused the Labor Party of abetting the West’s cultural suicide by encouraging mass Muslim immigration.

It hardly needs to be said that Breivik’s actions were deplorable, monstrous, sheer evil. Yet they did not suddenly negate the reality of the previous decade—major jihadist attacks on New York and Washington, Bali, Madrid, Beslan, London, Mumbai; growing Muslim enclaves in Western cities, whose residents, to an alarming extent, maintained the primitive practices (forced marriage, honor killing, female genital mutilation) associated with their faith, despised the core values of their host cultures, refused to assimilate into them but did not hesitate to exploit their welfare systems, and raised sons who commit violent crimes against non-Muslims, including gay-bashing, the tormenting of Jews, and the mass rape of children. In one Western country after another, surveys of Muslims showed that a terrifying proportion of them wanted to see the countries in which they had settled—many of them as refugees from Islamic tyranny—subjected to sharia law, under which apostasy from Islam, homosexuality, adultery, and many other offenses against totalitarian Koranic strictures would be punishable by death.

Glazov Moment: In Defense of Judge Jeanine. Fox News’ pathetic and shameful surrender to Sharia.

https://jamieglazov.com/2019/03/17/glazov-moment-in-defense-of-judge-jeanine/

In this new Jamie Glazov Moment, Jamie takes a stand In Defense of Judge Jeanine, unveiling Fox News’ pathetic and shameful surrender to Sharia.

Don’t miss it!