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December 2019

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

US: Rep. Adam Schiff’s Telephone Subpoenas by Chris Farrell

By on December 16th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15302/adam-schiff-telephone-subpoenas

The House of Representatives, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will not punish Schiff. Unethical, invasive, illegal activity is permissible as long as its focus is against President Trump.

If all political enemies can be “legally” targeted under the Schiff template, we can slide further and faster towards the failed state we are incrementally becoming.

Schiff’s conduct is outrageous and is a threat to the Constitution. He is operating outside the law…. Expulsion from Congress seems appropriate. One thing is for certain: if Schiff’s conduct stands unchallenged, the country and our Constitution will have suffered irreversible harm.

With the both the Democrats’ furious drive to impeach the president and the Justice Department Inspector General’s report on FBI surveillance abuse swirling on Capitol Hill, it’s easy to miss something that seems to be a footnote or detail. In “normal” times, the subject would be a banner headline, not a footnote, but we hardly live in such times now.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, targeted his political enemies with secret subpoenas of their phone records and then made those records public. Were his enemies the subject of the Intelligence Committee investigations? No. The victims of Schiff’s criminal abuse of his subpoena power – his personal political enemies – were the Ranking Member of Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA); veteran, award-winning, journalist John Solomon; and the personal attorney of the President of the United States, Rudy Giuliani.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Brazil Pledges to Move Embassy to Jerusalem During Trade Mission Opening

By on December 16th, 2019

https://unitedwithisrael.org/brazil-pledges-to-move-embassy-to-jerusalem-during-t

At the grand opening of Brazil’s trade mission in Jerusalem, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s son reiterated his father’s commitment to move the nation’s embassy to Israel’s capital.

On Sunday, Brazil officially opened a trade mission in Jerusalem, which was presented as a significant step toward a full-scale move for the Latin American nation’s embassy in Israel.

While the mission does not currently have diplomatic status, as opposed to the Jerusalem trade offices of Hungary and Honduras, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is a senior parliamentarian and the president’s son, made comments during the opening on Sunday signaling that Brazil has made a “commitment” to move its embassy to Israel’s capital.

The opening of the office was first announced in March 2019, during a visit to Israel by Bolsonaro.

Speaking in Jerusalem on Sunday, Eduardo Bolsonaro stated, “I was with [the president] before I came here. He told me that for sure, [the embassy move is a] commitment. He’s going to move the embassy to Jerusalem. He’s going to do that.”

“We want to [complete the move] to Jerusalem, not only for Brazil, but to be an example to the rest of Latin America,” Bolsonaro added, “We’re doing a normal thing — to recognize your capital.”

Bolsonaro also quoted the biblical precept that those who bless the nation of Israel will be blessed.

According to the Brazilian Agency for the Promotion of Exports and Investments (Apex-Brasil), a body linked to the Ministry of Foreign Relations that manages the trade mission, the office will handle trade, investment, technology and innovation.

The office, located in Jerusalem’s Har Hotzvim hi-tech park, is headed by Camila Torres Meyer, an international trade analyst, who has worked for Apex for 12 years. The other two employees will be Israelis.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Climate Zealots, Firing Squads, And A Load Of Manure J. Frank Bullitt

By on December 16th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/12/16/climate-zealots-firing-squads-and-a-load-of-manure/

The United Nations’ 25th Conference Of The Parties climate summit ended Sunday with participants unable to agree on what are the media are calling “key” emissions targets. Some participants are blaming America’s absence for the failure. The more sober-minded, though, are grateful President Donald Trump has no time for the global warming nonsense.

Even with the canonized Greta Thunberg threatening to put the world’s national leaders “against the wall” if they don’t “do their job and to protect our futures,” the principals could work out nothing more than, according to the all-in-on-the-global-warming-hysterics Guardian, “a partial agreement to ask countries to come up with more ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the terms of the 2015 Paris accord.”

(For the record, the Swedish teen scold apologized for her comment. Maybe someone told her that her rant sounded as if she wanted to round up those who have failed her, and line them up for a firing squad, revealing a little too much of the fantasies many of the hate-filled alarmists play out in their heads.)

The response from activists was predictable. They made a “really futile and stupid gesture” by dumping horse manure outside the meeting and staging a mock hanging in which one of the “condemned” held a baby while she had a rope around her neck. Reuters said these woke folk were “frustrated” by the talks. Frustrated, we’d say, in the same way a child becomes upset and throws a tantrum because he couldn’t get his way.

The U.S. had no official representatives at the summit, though a delegation of congressional Democrats did travel to Madrid, where Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi assured the delegates, feckless poseurs whose greatest achievement has been to convince the world that they’re important people doing important work, that “we are still in.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Inclusion Delusion The saddest part of the diversity bureaucracy is its delusional message that race and ethnicity and gender matter more than hard work and academic achievement. Edward Ring *****

By on December 16th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/15/the-inclusion-delusion/

California’s public universities already apply variable standards to their undergraduate admissions programs to fulfill de facto racial quotas. Now they’re requiring their faculty applicants to submit “diversity statements.”

Both of these practices distract from more important questions: Are student applicants academically competitive? Are faculty applicants experts in their fields? In reality, California’s public universities have moved far away from these fundamentals. And as goes California, so goes the nation.

Prioritizing race and gender diversity over academic excellence has consequences, not the least of which is how those who object to these priorities are intimidated. Abigail Thompson, professor and chairwoman of the Department of Mathematics at UC Davis, is one of the most recent victims.

In a letter published by the American Mathematical Society, Thompson objected to the “diversity statements” that are now required of all faculty applicants, and which she claims have become “central to the hiring process.” Thompson compared these diversity statements to the “loyalty oaths” that were required of University of California faculty members during the 1950s.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: WHEN HATE BECOMES AN AGENDA

By on December 16th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/15/when-hate-becomes-an-agenda/

Trump so infuriated his opponents that, rather than find arguments to convince a majority of Americans that the president’s policies were flawed, his enemies instead sought to destroy him.

When a party, an ideological movement, and an entire political agenda is based on hatred, people and policies become warped. The left-wing loathing of Trump has now tainted almost every Democrat’s agenda and unhinged most of the party’s major players.

Impeachment has turned into a cruel caricature of a rare constitutional remedy for presidential criminality. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report proved a compendium of FBI lying, fraud, and vendetta. There is not a single prominent figure in Horowitz’s lengthy report who has not left a written or video trail of anti-Trump bias (James Comey, Peter Strozk, the Ohrs, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith) or has had some sort of questionable financial relationship with the Clintons or their affiliates (Alexander Downer, Andrew McCabe).

Meanwhile, the progressive presidential field is in a sort of collective meltdown, as candidates begin recalibrating and trading accusations as they fear their own early anti-Trump agendas have little public support.

The prior subtext to impeachment—if not smeared or stopped, Trump will win in 2020—was spoken only by hardcore leftists like U.S. Representatives Alexander Green (D-Texas) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Now it is shamelessly voiced by leaders in the party such as Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), with the twist of fears that Trump will “rig the election” (after Special Counsel Robert Mueller, of course, found that he had not done so in 2016, and Horowitz found that Trump’s campaign aides were largely targeted by the FBI and CIA hierarchy) unless he is impeached.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why a Jewish Democrat Mayor Praised Trump for Standing Up to Anti-Semitism And what it says about anti-Semitism among the Democrats. Daniel Greenfield

By on December 16th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/why-jewish-democrat-mayor-praised-trump-standing-daniel-greenfield/

At the White House Chanukah party, Mayor Michael Wildes approached President Trump to thank him for his support after the massacre at a Kosher market in Jersey City by two black nationalists.

“Thank you, Mr. President for your extraordinary work today,” the Englewood mayor told Trump in a video posted on Facebook. “Standing up to anti-Semitism has been in your DNA. Why is that so natural?”

“It’s always been the way I felt,” President Trump replied. “As you know I have a son-in-law, daughter, and three magnificent children. Jewish. And what happened in New Jersey was horrible.”

“I can’t tell you how much means to the Jewish community,” Wildes said. “This is not a Democrat or Republican issue.”

Mayor Wildes is a Democrat. And while he insists that standing up to the hatred that killed two Jewish people, as well as a police detective and a store employee is not a partisan issue, it very much is.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Boris’ Win: A ‘Seismic Moment in Our History’ Boris Johnson has a new blue-collar army – hard-working, decent people who put family, Queen and country first. Katie Hopkins

By on December 16th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/hopkins-boris-win-seismic-moment-our-history-katie-hopkins/

There are still times this little island I live on manages to surprise me. Right now, I could kiss it’s rolling hills and green and pleasant lands.

Boris Johnson’s stunning win in the British General Election 2019 is simply electrifying. It gives him a clear majority in the House of Commons and an equally clear mandate to Get Brexit Done by 31 January.

The reaction of decent Brits and law-abiding patriots could not be more thrilling. Boris re-imagined a clip from Love, Actually in his campaign and right now it really does feel as if there is ‘joy all around’.

It is not just that Boris won. Nor the size of his majority at 78. Nor the fact that his power is nearing Thatcher’s.

It is the affirmation that the heart and soul of this country is still intact. That the British spirit is alive and kicking and that some kind of fight-back for our Judeo-Christian culture is on.

Despite the fact our supporters are silenced in the media, unrepresented by broadcasters and unheard in life, we are still here, ready to shout and to act when we are called upon – or, indeed, finally allowed to.

This is a very British revolution. No battles waged in the street, as in France with the Gilets Jaunes still out there week on week. No stones thrown, or windows broken, as on the streets of Hong Kong. No streak of flames across the night sky as a Molotov cocktail is tossed in anger.

Just the dignified silence of the ballot box on a cold December day in the wind and rain, reminding those who should know better that when we voted on 23 June 2016 we meant what we said. And we still mean it today.

The British people voted for Brexit. They have waited stoically for it to be delivered. And now it will be done.

All this coming from a place where things do feel truly broken. London is just picking itself back up from another terror attack on London Bridge, only recently washed down from the last blood that was spilled there.

A Muslim mayor presides over the highest murder rates in modern history, with Chicago-level numbers of black-on-black stabbings, the slaughter of children as young as 14, and feuding drug gangs settling scores with knives.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

President Trump Again Does the Right Thing for the Jewish People By Rabbi Aryeh Spero

By on December 16th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/12/president_tru

I was honored to be present at the White House on the day President Trump signed an Executive Order protecting Jewish students from the harassment, bullying, and intimidation on American campuses coming primarily from Islamic student associations and leftwing professors and groups.

This harassment of Jewish students has been going on since the beginning of the Obama administration, and for all their supposed good intentions, the Obama presidency and the House under Nancy Pelosi never signed or passed an order or legislation to protect Jewish students on campus who are being uniquely targeted.  Obama’s and Pelosi’s failure to stop this had resulted in an escalation and growing ferocity each succeeding academic year.  I and some other Jewish leaders have spoken out and written about this calamity for years.

President Trump’s Executive Order does not attack free speech. 

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HISTORY, MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Jamestown: Where the Empire Began Joe Dolce

By on December 16th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/1964/winter/jamestown-where-the-empire-began/

Jamestown, Virginia, was the first permanent British settlement in the Americas. It was named in 1607 after King James I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, King of England and Ireland, who also reigned as King James VI of Scotland.

The three types of colonies that the British established in the Americas were Charter Colonies, Proprietary Colonies and Royal Colonies. Jamestown originated as a Charter Colony, in which the King granted control to a local colonial government to establish the practical rules of day-to-day governance. A Proprietary Colony required private investment, and was frequently used to reward friends and allies of the King. A Royal Colony was administered by a governor appointed by the Crown, but Royal Colonies often had elected governments and were self-governing.

Spain, Portugal and France had already made inroads into the New World by explorers such as Christopher Columbus (1492), Amerigo Vespucci (1507) and the Spanish conquistador Don Hernán Cortés (1590), conqueror of the Aztecs and Incas. The enormous riches that Cortés discovered, particularly gold, inspired sponsorship of the early British expeditions by wealthy businessmen seeking to increase their fortunes.

Jamestown is a three-part, twenty-four-episode television mini-series produced by Carnival Films, the people behind Downton Abbey, and filmed in Hungary. Sam Wollaston, of the Guardian, wrote:

[Jamestown’s] certainly a goldmine from a storyteller’s point of view. There are all sorts of horrors here—the birth of the British empire and of modern America, war and slavery just round the corner. It’s an almost endless seam of stories, and the three recent arrivals, each with their own horrors and journeys, are a good route in.

Bernard Cornwell once said, “Most historical novels have a big story, and a little story—you flip them and put the little story in the foreground.”

In Jamestown, the big story is the cathartic transformation of the 1606 trading settlement of the Virginia Company (also known as the London Company)—initially chartered by King James, off the coast of Virginia between latitudes 34 and 41, as an investment, with the aim of discovering gold and silver—into a Crown Colony in 1624, while at the same time bestowing on it the right to self-government. This unusual hybrid, ironically, led to the birth of American democracy.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, POLITICS Comments turned off

Democratic lawmakers shunning Green New Deal despite pressure from Left Naomi Lim

By on December 16th, 2019

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/democratic-lawmakers-shunning-green-new-deal-despite-pressure-from-left

The Green New Deal has high-profile backers in Congress, but several incumbent Democrats are keeping their distance from the proposal left-wing supporters say would address climate change and economic inequality.

The nonbinding resolution, championed by New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, would pair a transition to 100% clean, renewable energy with economic and social programs, such as a federal jobs guarantee and universal healthcare. Its goals have become a litmus test for Democrats courting liberal voters as they seek the 2020 presidential nomination.

But candidates running in the party’s primaries for spots further down the ballot and against Republicans in November 2020 are grappling with the often-poisonous politics of the proposed framework.

Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents a slither of the state from San Antonio’s suburbs to the Rio Grande, won his 2018 primary race with almost 85% of the vote. But in recent weeks, the self-described “moderate-centrist,” Democrat, first elected to the House in 2004, has upped his criticism of the Green New Deal. Cuellar, 64, faces a 2020 primary challenge from attorney Jessica Cisneros, who is running with support from Justice Democrats, the same liberal political action committee that backed Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise primary win last cycle of a member of the House Democratic leadership.

“Well, first of all, I call them ‘Justice Socialists.’ They are socialists, no ifs and no buts about it,” Cuellar said, having previously accused them of wanting to “impose their vision on Texas.”

Justice Democrats “believe in a Green Deal,” Cuellar said. “And in my area, for example, it would kill thousands of jobs.”

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