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June 2019

HISTORY Comments turned off

EDWARD CLINE: ORIANA FALLACI REMEMBERED

By on June 15th, 2019

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/

An essential history lesson from the great Oriana Fallaci that should be required study in all schools. If enough people actually understood what Islam means in practice, there would be no tolerance for it and it would, finally, be relegated to the dustbin of history along with evils like Nazism. Read it all:

“LESSON OF HISTORY
In 635 AD, that is, three years after the death of Mohammed, the army of the Holy Crescent invaded Christian Syria and Christian Palestine.

In 638 they took Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 

In 640, seizing Persia, Armenia and Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), they invaded Christian Egypt and conquered the Christian Maghreb, that is, modern Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
In 668 they first attacked Constantinople and besieged it for five years.

In 711 they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and landed on the highly Catholic Iberian Peninsula, crushing Portugal and Spain, where, despite the resistance of the heroic warriors of Pelayo, Sid Campeador and others, they remained as much as eight centuries.

And the one who believes in “peaceful coexistence that marked the relationship between conquerors and conquered” let him re-read stories about burned abbeys and monasteries, desecrated churches, raped nuns, Christian and Jewish women who were locked in their harems.

Let him remember about those crucified in Cordoba, hanged in Granada, beheaded in Toledo and Barcelona, Seville and Zamora. (The decapitation in Seville was ordered by Mutamid: he used these severed heads of Jews and Christians to decorate his palace. In Zamora, heads were cut at the order of Almanzur, the vizier who is known as the “patron of philosophers and the greatest leader of Islamic Spain”! 

Saying the name of Jesus meant instant execution. Crucifixion, of course, or decapitation, or hanging, or impalement. The same followed those who dared to ring the bell. The same for wearing green, which belonged exclusively to Islam. When a Muslim passed by, every Jew and Christian was obliged to step aside and worship. And woe to that Jew or Christian who dared to respond to an insult from a Muslim. As for that widely advertised detail, that the unfaithful dogs were not obliged to convert to Islam and they were not even pushed towards it, do you know why they were not pushed? 

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Right from Wrong: Pride and left-wing prejudice Ruthie Blum

By on June 15th, 2019

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-from-Wrong-Pride-and-left-wing-prejudice-592505

In an interview on Wednesday evening with Channel 12’s Amit Segal, newly sworn-in Justice Minister Amir Ohana explained his controversial view of the Supreme Court by referring to the horrifying ambush and slaughter of a pregnant woman and her four young daughters at the hands of Palestinian jihadists 15 years ago.

In 2004, Gush Katif resident Tali Hatuel and her children – Hila, 11; Hadar, 9; Roni, 7; and 2-year-old Merav – were gunned down at the Kissufim junction by terrorists who, it emerged, had managed to hide behind buildings that were identified by the IDF as security threats. Nevertheless, said Ohana, the Supreme Court, “despite its lack of expertise” in the matter, “prevented the demolition of the structures.”

So when asked by Segal if he – a lawyer, a major in the reserves, a veteran of the Shin Bet (Israel security agency) and now interim justice minister – would go so far as to suggest that certain High Court decisions not be honored, Ohana answered “yes.” “The supreme consideration,” he said, employing a play on the adjective, “must be to safeguard the lives of [Israeli] citizens.”

Nor did Ohana skip a beat when Segal challenged him to contradict himself in relation to the Supreme Court’s liberalism where the LGBTQ community is concerned. Ohana – a gay father of two – smiled and shook his head, while telling Segal that the most important strides in LGBTQ rights were made in the Knesset – the legislative body – not the judiciary. Which is as it should be in a democracy.

Following the interview, Ohana clarified on social media that he had not meant to propose disregarding all regular court rulings, but rather those surrounding “extreme” cases – such as the murder of the Hatuel family.

“The first responsibility of every country is the safety and well-being of its citizens, before anything that sounds good or photographs well,” he wrote. In a “necessary restatement of the obvious,” he added, “court decisions must be honored. I have always [followed this credo], and it is what I believe. Israel is a democracy under the banner of the rule of law, and such it will remain.”

The question of the courts’ overreach is only a fraction of what causes apoplexy among Ohana’s detractors, however. His staunch defense of the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, for example – which he was instrumental in drafting – is another hot-button issue over which he is given the cold shoulder.

Yet another is his long-standing support for legislation that would grant immunity from prosecution for a sitting prime minister, which has elicited cynical claims of his being a “suck up to Bibi.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Mullahs Promise “Demise of Israel” and American Civilization by Majid Rafizadeh

By on June 15th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14328/iran-threats-israel-us

Iran recently produced a program on its state television channel demonstrating that the government is currently practicing missile attacks, with the purpose of carrying out actual attacks on Israel…. The video excerpt included in the television broadcast showed how the operations the Iranians are striving to put into action will bombard Tel Aviv.

From the perspective of the Iranian leaders, if they continue to increase their threats against Israel, the United States will be pressured to change its strategy and lift pressure that has been placed on the clerical establishment, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and its elite branch, the Quds Force.

It is an unacceptable double-standard that the United Nations and the international community have been, and continue to be, silent about Iran’s threats against Israeli citizens. If the situation were reversed and if Israel threatened to annihilate Iran, the international community would be up in arms, and quick to defend Iran. Through political and economic pressure, the ruling mullahs of Iran should be held accountable by the international community for endangering global security and regional stability.

The Iranian government continues to defy international standards, as it refuses to act as a rational and constructive state, even apart from its repeated malign behavior in the Gulf of Oman this week. Iran’s Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who enjoys the final say in all of Iran’s domestic and foreign policies, recently proclaimed to the youth in Iran that they will soon witness the demise of Israel and all of American civilization. This announcement was confirmed on the Supreme Leader’s official website.

Khamenei made Iran’s intentions clear while meeting with students. “You young people,” he declared, “should be assured that you will witness the demise of the enemies of humanity, meaning the degenerate American civilization, and the demise of Israel”.

Iran also recently produced a program on its state television channel demonstrating that the government is currently practicing missile attacks, with the purpose of carrying out actual attacks on Israel. The video excerpt included in the television broadcast showed how the operations the Iranians are striving to put into action will bombard Tel Aviv. The video concludes with images of Israeli citizens covered in white sheets, indicating great tragedy for Israel, and a victory for the Islamic Republic.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Why Feel-Good Policy Rarely Works Best Timothy Snowball

By on June 15th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/15/why-feel-good-policy-rarely-works-best/

Reprinted with permission from Pacific Legal Foundation’s Summer Sword & Scales.

Developing effective public policy is tough, thoughtful work. There is so much to consider: What is the problem? What can be done about it? Who is best equipped (and legally authorized) to do it? 

What is the likelihood of success? Time, study, and seriousness are the name of the game. 

That is, unless you’re a California state official. In that case, no hard thinking — or data — is needed. Just develop public policy based on what feels good. The California plastic straw ban is a prime example. 

In an effort to seem as ecofriendly as possible, California, along with several cities and localities around the country, have decided to outlaw plastic straws in bars and restaurants unless upon specific request. 

These sweeping policy decisions were not based on serious contemplation of the issue, studies looking into the best environmental practices, or considering reality. Instead, they were inspired by a report from a 9-year-old and a viral YouTube video featuring an injured sea turtle. 

Here’s the background: Eight years ago, a fifth-grader named Milo Cress began a campaign urging his hometown to “Be Straw Free.” He encouraged restaurants to ask customers before offering straws. As part of the campaign, Milo called a handful of straw manufacturers and asked them how many straws they sell. Then, based on that limited data, he extrapolated a claim that Americans consume 500 million plastic straws a day. 

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POLITICS Comments turned off

No Outrage Over Democrat Ties to Foreign Election Interference By Julie Kelly

By on June 15th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/14/no-outrage-over-democrat-ties-to-foreign-election-interference/

In the latest media-manufactured crisis du jour, the president now stands falsely accused of inviting foreign interference into our elections.

During an Oval Office interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Thursday, President Trump said there “isn’t anything wrong” with listening to information offered up by a foreigner about a candidate’s political opponent.

“It’s not an interference, they have information. I think I’d take it,” he told Stephanapolous when asked whether it’s appropriate to accept opposition research from someone in another country. “If I thought there was something wrong, maybe I’d take it to the FBI, if I thought there was something wrong.”

The rather innocuous comments unleashed the predictable and tiresome widespread outrage. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scolded the president for “not knowing between right and wrong” and demanded that “everyone in the country should be appalled.”

Trump’s remarks provided the newest grist for impeachment threats. Perpetual bore Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) apparently misunderstood Trump’s response, but nonetheless seized the opportunity again to boast of his moral superiority. “I ran for president twice. I ran for governor once. I ran for Senate twice,” Romney told CNN, once again reminding Americans that he has been in politics for way too long. “I’ve never had any attempt made by a foreign government. Had that occurred, I would’ve contacted the FBI immediately.”

Even Ellen Weintraub, the chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, weighed in from her long-expired perch (her term officially ended in 2007) at that agency:

While Weintraub’s lecture earned atta boys from the usual suspects, it again brought attention to the legitimate scandal that the media, Democrats, and NeverTrump Republicans continue to ignore and excuse: The use of foreign sources to fabricate and promote the Russian collusion fable during the 2016 presidential campaign.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Godspeed, Sarah Sanders The outgoing press secretary was a breath of fresh air Roger Kimball

By on June 15th, 2019

https://spectator.us/godspeed-sarah-sanders/

THIS IS AN EXCERPT…..BRILLIANT!!!!RSK

“Then we come to another leitmotif in the anti-Sanders orgy that has so delighted the anti-Trump stalwarts commenting on Sanders’s departure. I mean the fact that she long ago dispensed with daily press briefings. ‘Other press secretaries and the administrations they served have catered to us, why don’t you?’

Here I come to a melancholy truth that, being of a charitable disposition, I hesitate to impart to the yapping pack of sensitive and entitled scribes who have closed ranks against the president and his staff. It is this: Donald Trump does things differently from other presidents. You may have been used to being fed pabulum daily by previous administrations, some of which you treated with hostile disdain, some with uncritical adulation.

But nowhere, except in the odiferous annals of your inflated self-importance, is it written that you are entitled to daily, weekly, or monthly press briefings. I know that is a blow to your vanity, but there it is. Mirabile dictu, the republic survives, even in the face of your neglect. The truth is, as any dispassionate observer will acknowledge, that Donald Trump and Sarah Sanders have treated the press with far more courtesy and candor than they have treated them.

What the press cannot abide is their continued existence: that Donald Trump is still, even now, even after they, thundering bullfrogs of the press, have laid out their objections to an indifferent populace. How could they, the ingrates. And now a Trump loyalist is departing. Let’s hound her on the way out and exhibit just how small, ungracious, and craven we are.

As Donald Trump said, Sarah Sanders is a brave and generous-hearted woman, a ‘warrior’ whose hem the mirror-gazing minions of the press are unworthy to touch. They’ll read each other’s headlines and smirk, but that will be paltry gratification in the face of six more years of Trump and a justly proud and successful Sarah Sanders, who might just take Donald Trump’s advice and run for the governorship of the great state of Arkansas. Godspeed to her.”

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

It’s Time for Progressives to Protect Women Instead of Pronouns by Julie Bindel

By on June 15th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/06/14/its-time-for-progressives-to-protect-women-instead-of-pronouns/

“A century ago, suffragists were beaten and imprisoned for asserting their rights as women. Their attackers were conservative reactionaries who hated the idea of women being treated as equals. It is shocking to see this same spirit of misogyny re-enter the marketplace of ideas through the back door of faux-progressive trans orthodoxy.”

On my way out of Edinburgh University last week, where I’d just delivered a speech on how feminists should resist male violence, I was attacked by a shrieking “transgender person” (to cite the term used in a Scotsman headline). Had it not been for the three burly security guards surrounding me, I would have been punched.

I usually use female pronouns to refer to trans women, as a courtesy. But this is a courtesy I won’t extend to someone seeking to hurt me physically. This was a man—specifically, a misogynist who’d become notorious under the (since deleted) Twitter handle TownTattle. He was deeply offended that I’d been allowed to speak. That’s why he wanted to hurt me: for being a woman who opened her mouth.

The event at which I’d appeared was called Women’s Sex-Based Rights. It focussed on the threat to women-only spaces and organizations posed by gender activists who seek to erase any legal distinction in regard to the treatment of male- and female-bodied individuals. In the run-up to the event, trans activists and their allies (mostly men who are highly woke, as popular slang would have it) had been claiming that the meeting would cause harm to trans students, and that I would be promoting hate.

Before we took the stage, speakers were given an hour-long briefing by the university’s security team. We were told what would happen if the stage were stormed by protesters, or if it became necessary to vacate the venue. This is what it now means to advocate publicly for women’s rights.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Aren’t delirious Democrats now accusing Team Obama of treason? John Solomon

By on June 15th, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/448589-arent-delirious-democrats-now-accusing-team-obama-of-treason

American voters are a lot harder to fool than the political elite think.

If you read the newspapers, tuned into the cable TV pundits or received an email from one of the Democrats running for president, you’d swear Donald Trump was back to his treasonous ways. 

All that was missing was an annoying OMG text exclamation punctuating the unfounded claims that Trump might violate the law in 2020 by accepting intelligence on a political rival from a foreign country. The inference, of course, is that it would come from a hostile power such as  Russia or North Korea or Iran.

Actually, what Trump told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos was that he’d consider taking intelligence dirt about a rival from a friendly ally. (Norway was the actual example he used.)

Sound familiar? That is EXACTLY what the Obama administration did in 2016. It’s something no one in the media or the political space grasped during the tsunami of breathless reaction that followed the interview.

In July 2016, the Obama administration accepted unsolicited information from Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat who just happened to have helped arrange a $25 million government donation to the Clinton Foundation years before. Downer said that he had witnessed a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, bragging about some dirt that the Russians supposedly had on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Though Downer’s claim was reported two-plus months after the alleged event, and was only hearsay gathered at a London tavern, the Obama administration gave it to the FBI which, in turn, thought it was weighty enough to justify opening a counterintelligence case against the lawfully elected Republican nominee for president.

In other words, the Democratic administration accepted dirt from a foreign friendly and used it to justify investigating its GOP rival.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Defining Socialism Down Bernie Sanders left out a few details about his political creed.

By on June 15th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/defining-socialism-down-11560553255

Part of Bernie Sanders’ apparent political appeal is his authenticity. He may be a socialist, but at least he’s honest about it. Then again, his speech on Thursday defining his idea of democratic socialism may begin to erode that reputation.

The Vermont Senator presents himself as the ideological descendant of FDR, whom many seniors still revere and millennials incorrectly believe rescued America from the Great Depression. Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee and energy-industry takeover? Mr. Sanders says they are merely an extension of New Deal programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

“Like today, the quest for transformative change was opposed by big business, Wall Street, the political establishment, by the Republican Party and by the conservative wing of FDR’s own Democratic Party,” the Democratic Socialist declared. “While he stood up for the working families of our country, we can never forget that President Roosevelt was reviled by the oligarchs of his time, who berated these extremely popular programs as ‘socialism.’”

We can understand why Mr. Sanders wants to define socialism in this way, since the polls show the word is politically toxic for most Americans. But he’s underselling his own contributions. FDR’s social programs were based on the principle of work in return for benefits. Workers chipped in part of their payroll to finance their own retirement many years hence. The benefits are unsustainable now, but at least they require someone to work.

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