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December 2019

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Schiff Threatens Press Freedom When the surveillance state exposes a journalist and his sources, there’s an instant chilling effect. By John Solomon

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/schiff-threatens-press-freedom-11575937690?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the bible for agents, has long recognized that journalists, the clergy and lawyers deserve special protections because of the constitutional implications of investigating their work. Penitents who confess to a priest, sources who provide confidential information to a reporter, and clients who seek advice from counsel are assumed to be protected by a high bar of privacy, which must be weighed against the state’s interests in investigating matters or subpoenaing records. Judges and members of Congress also fall into a special FBI category because of the Constitution’s separation of powers.

The FBI and Justice Department have therefore created specific rules governing agents’ actions involving special-circumstances professionals, which include high-level approval and review. There are also special rules for subpoenaing journalists.

If the executive branch, and by extension the courts that enforce these privacy protections, observe the need for such sensitivity, it seems reasonable that Congress should have similar guardrails ensuring that the powers of the state are equally and fairly applied.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff apparently doesn’t see things that way. His committee secretly authorized subpoenas to AT&T earlier this year for the phone records of President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and an associate. He then arbitrarily extracted information about certain private calls and made them public.

Many of the calls Mr. Schiff chose to publicize fell into the special-circumstances categories: a fellow member of Congress ( Rep. Devin Nunes, the Intelligence Committee’s ranking Republican), two lawyers (Mr. Giuliani and fellow Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow ) and a journalist (me).

More alarming, the released call records involve figures who have sometimes criticized or clashed with Mr. Schiff. I wrote a story raising questions about his contacts with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, a key figure in the Russia probe, that brought the California Democrat unwelcome scrutiny. Mr. Nunes has been one of Mr. Schiff’s main Republican antagonists, helping to prove that the exaggerated claims of Trump-Russia election collusion were unsubstantiated. Messrs. Sekulow and Giuliani represent Mr. Trump, who is Mr. Schiff’s impeachment target.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Principled Dissident Turns Despotic Premier Suu Kyi once wrote that the fear of losing power corrupts. She’s proved that she’s no exception. By Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-principled-dissident-turns-despotic-premier-11575937539?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident turned politician Aung San Suu Kyi will again capture the world’s attention this week. To those who still remember her as a prisoner of conscience with a serene smile, the reason may come as a surprise. As Myanmar’s civilian leader, Ms. Suu Kyi has taken on a new mantle: spokesperson for mass atrocity.

Ms. Suu Kyi will appear Tuesday to lead her country’s defense against allegations of genocide before the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The Myanmar military has persecuted the country’s ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority for years. During two brutal ethnic-cleansing campaigns in 2016-17, the military reportedly oversaw the murder of people in their homes, the rape of women and girls, and the arson of entire communities. In the aftermath, more than 800,000 Rohingya have fled and sought refuge in Bangladesh.

After Ms. Suu Kyi’s 15 years under house arrest for criticizing the regime, many outsiders, especially her longtime supporters in the West, thought that she would use her position of power and moral authority to curb the military’s excesses. Instead, Ms. Suu Kyi is defending the crackdown, claiming that Rohingya terrorists are creating an “iceberg” of misinformation about the military’s treatment of the group.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Trail of FBI Abuse The Horowitz report confirms that the bureau deceived FISA judges with the Steele dossier.

By on December 10th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-trail-of-fbi-abuse-11575938300?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The press corps is portraying Monday’s report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz as absolution for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but don’t believe it. The report relates a trail of terrible judgment and violations of process that should shock Americans who thought better of their premier law-enforcement agency.

Readers can look at the detailed executive summary and decide for themselves. But our own initial reading confirms the worst of what we feared about the bureau when it was run by James Comey. The FBI corrupted the secret court process for obtaining warrants to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page. And it did so by supplying the court with false information produced by Christopher Steele, an agent of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

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How can anyone, most of all civil libertarians, pass this off as no big deal? The absolution is supposedly that Mr. Horowitz concludes that the FBI decision to open a counter-intelligence probe against the Trump campaign in July 2016 “was sufficient to predicate the investigation” under current FBI rules.

Yet Mr. Horowitz also notes that these rules amount to a “low threshold for predication.” John Durham, the U.S. Attorney investigating these matters for Attorney General William Barr, said Monday he disagrees with Mr. Horowitz’s conclusions on predication, albeit without elaboration for now.

Mr. Horowitz confirms what the FBI had already leaked to friendly reporters, which is that the bureau’s alarm in July 2016 was triggered by a conversation that former Trump aide George Papadopoulos had with Australian Alexander Downer. But we learn for the first time that the FBI immediately ramped up its counter-intelligence probe to include four Trump campaign officials: Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos, then campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency Michael Flynn.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

AG Bill Barr Just Issued a Translation of the DOJ IG Report & It’s a Red-Hot Rebuke of ‘Intrusive’ Spying on Trump By Victoria Taft

By on December 10th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/agl-bill-barr-just-issued-a-translation-of-the-doj-ig-report-its-a-red-hot-rebuke-of-intrusive-trump-spying/

“I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya

The Department of Justice Inspector General’s (IG) report into the FBI lying to the FISA Court to get warrants to spy on the Trump campaign is 433 pages. It took AG Bill Barr one paragraph to translate what all of it means in the real world. Oh, and don’t pick it up because you might burn yourself.

The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory. Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration. In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source. …[T]he malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process.

Because the IG has no right to subpoena and can’t lock anyone up, he can only refer people for prosecution. Currently, most of the people who conducted the abuse have been fired and were out of the purview of the IG.

The IG report, however, found that officials lied and omitted helpful information to Trump campaign officials who were being spied on, but couldn’t determine if the malfeasance was politically motivated.

U.S. Attorney John Durham is looking into why the Trump spying case was hatched by people clearly pulling for Hillary Clinton to win the election.  CONTINUE AT SITE

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOLARS REPORT: DAVID RANDALL: SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION IN AMERICA

By on December 10th, 2019

READ THE REPORT HERE;

https://nas.org/reports/social-justice-education-in-america?utm_source=National+Association+of+Scholars+General&utm_campaign=a1dcc4545a-

On December 6th at a launch event co-hosted with the James G. Martin Center, the National Association of Scholars (NAS) released Social Justice Education in America, a report analyzing the influence of social justice advocates at 60 colleges and universities nationwide. The report finds that these advocates have insinuated themselves into the university system to propagandize students, politicize the most basic college courses, create administrative and teaching positions for like-minded advocates, and transform universities into training camps for progressive activism.
 
David Randall, the report’s author said, “NAS has watched this growing trend with concern for many years. Social justice advocates and their allies have dramatically changed the way in which our universities train tomorrow’s leaders. Social justice education subordinates every discipline from accounting to zoology to the pursuit of progressive political activism.”
 
The report documents the means that social justice advocates have used to establish themselves: altering university mission statements, seizing internal graduation requirements, capturing existing disciplines and creating pseudo-disciplines, and ultimately capturing the university administrations. Social Justice Education in America provides detailed charts and a wealth of examples of classes, departments, events, jobs, journals, and administrative offices that teach social justice to unsuspecting students and secure jobs in higher education for social justice advocates.

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ISRAEL, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Declares American-Israeli Bond ‘Unbreakable,’ Blasts ‘Radical Lawmakers Who Support the BDS Movement’ by Benjamin Kerstein

By on December 9th, 2019

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/12/08/trump-declares-american-israeli-bond-unbreakable-blasts-radical-lawmakers-who-support-the-bds-movement/President Donald Trump declared the American-Israeli alliance “unbreakable” and slammed anti-Israel Democratic lawmakers at a major conference of pro-Israel activists on Saturday night.

At the Israeli American Council’s national conference in Florida, Trump said of the alliance between Israel and the United States, “It’s unbreakable, unbreakable.”

“The Jewish state has never had a better friend in the White House than your president, Donald J. Trump,” he added.

Without mentioning their names, Trump also appeared to hit out at Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who support boycotting the Jewish state and have been accused of antisemitism.

“You’ve got to be very careful, make no mistake, radical lawmakers who support the BDS movement are advancing anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda,” Trump stated.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Thousands of British Jews and Supporters Hold Major Rally Against Antisemitism in London

By on December 9th, 2019

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/12/08/thousands-of-british-jews-and-supporters-hold-major-rally-against-antisemitism-in-london/

Thousands of British Jews and their supporters came together for a major rally against antisemitism on Sunday in London’s Parliament Square.

Concerns over antisemitism have skyrocketed in recent years, with the overwhelming majority of British Jews coming to see the opposition Labour party as institutionally antisemitic.

British Jews and their allies rally against antisemitism in London’s Parliament Square, December 8, 2019. Photo: Courtesy of the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Thousands of British Jews and their supporters came together for a major rally against antisemitism on Sunday in London’s Parliament Square.

Concerns over antisemitism have skyrocketed in recent years, with the overwhelming majority of British Jews coming to see the opposition Labour party as institutionally antisemitic.

British Jews have expressed particular trepidation about the possibility of a Labour victory in the upcoming December 12 elections. Though the Conservative party still leads, Labour has narrowed the gap in recent polls.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

U.S. Officials: Saudi Gunman Left Trail of Anti-American Social Media Posts before Pensacola Attack By Tobias Hoonhout

By on December 9th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-officials-saudi-gunman-left-trail-of-anti-american-social-media-posts-before-pensacola-attack/

U.S. officials have confirmed they are looking into anti-American comments posted on the Twitter account of Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, the Saudi national who killed three in a shooting at the Pensacola naval base last week.

Federal law enforcement officials are investigating whether the gunman authored the words or just posted them, an official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Another official said that prior to the shooting, the gunman hosted a dinner party where he and three others watched videos of mass shootings.

SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist media, reported that the gunman did not claim allegiance to any group, but echoed famed Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Rita Katz

The style of the #Pensacolashooting doesn’t necessarily resemble one group over another. However, given that ISIS has very little to lose at this point, it wouldn’t be surprising if it claimed the attack, regardless of the attacker’s potential allegiances.

BREAKING: Tweet by #Pensacola attacker Alshamrani suggests terrorist motive. Does not claim allegiance to any group, but echos Bin Laden: “The security is a shared destiny…You will not be safe until we live it as reality in [Palestine], and American troops get out of our land.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Why Trump’s Gains With Black Voters Could Swing The 2020 Election By Stewart Lawrence

By on December 9th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/09/why-trumps-gains-with-black-voters-could-swing-the-2020-election/

How much support can Trump actually gain in 2020? It’s not clear, but just a modest swing of African Americans toward Trump in 2020 could prove decisive.

Will African Americans abandon the Democratic Party in 2020? Not a chance. Black voters still have deep ties to the party that finally agreed with Republicans on passing the Civil Rights Act in 1965 and continues to extol “multiculturalism” and black “identity” politics at every turn.

Every time members of the GOP appear to be coddling prejudice or failing to condemn racism against blacks, Democrats’ message that Republicans are the “enemy” of ethnic minorities resonates, dashing the GOP’s hopes of making gains with black voters.
 But in 2020, Donald Trump clearly has an opening with African Americans that Republicans have not seen in some time.

Despite condemning Trump publicly as a bigot, Democrats are privately worried about this. They should be. Two recent and highly reputable polls have registered an extraordinarily high “favorability” rating for Trump among black voters – about 34-35 percent, far exceeding the 8 percent of the black electorate that actually voted for Trump in 2016. That’s a huge jump from the 9 percent favorability rating among African Americans he earned in 2018 and the 13 percent he achieved earlier this year.

Of course, a 35 percent favorability rating may not translate into 35 percent support in the 2020 election, but it doesn’t have to. Even a substantial gain to double-digit support could provide the margin of difference in key swing states, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, sealing Trump’s reelection.

Trump’s 8 percent of the black vote in 2016 was a notable improvement over Mitt Romney’s 6 percent in 2012 and John McCain’s 4 percent in 2008. But it’s a far cry from where Republicans once stood with African Americans nationally or at the state level, where a GOP candidate sometimes earns 25 percent or more of the black vote.

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Transgender Demands Are An Attack On Real Human Rights It is not a human right for a grown man with male genitals to shower next to girls at the gym; it is a human right for girls to say ‘no’ to this new brand of rape culture.By Kaeley Triller Haver

By on December 9th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/09/transgender-demands-are-an-attack-on-real-human-rights/

In refugee camps across the globe, there is an increased demand for adult diapers. Is this because of some fetish? No. It’s because the females in these camps know that to walk to the bathroom alone at night puts them at a dramatically increased risk of rape, and they would rather sit for hours in their own excrement than risk being violated.

Amnesty International has called sex-exclusive toilets a human rights issue and the difference between whether many girls will be able to receive an education. These scenarios highlight a bleak reality that everyone already knows: Since the dawn of time, women and girls have been oppressed on the basis of our sex, not our perceived sense of gender or our affinity for pink.

Across the globe, a category of humans routinely falls victim to the overwhelming majority of the world’s sexual and domestic violence. They are sold as child brides, trafficked as sex slaves, rented as “breeders,” denied basic education, aborted in utero at the first sign of a vulva, and subject to a litany of human rights atrocities. Their oppression has nothing to do with their fashion preferences or their desire to wear a dress and everything to do with the material reality of their biological sex. They are females.

Policing pronouns is a luxury of the privileged. Women and girls across the world who are fighting tooth and nail for their basic human rights and sex-based protections do not have the luxury of sitting around overhauling their language or bullying everyone else into compliance with their demands. This is some navel-gazing, narcissistic nonsense.

You can safely assume you have a whole lot of privilege when you can look at the basic human protections women in third world countries are so desperate to acquire, flush them down the drain, and declare that these same protections are somehow oppressing you.

This is not a civil rights issue. Trans-identified people already have equal rights; they’re demanding special rights at the expense of women and girls. It is not a human right for a grown man with a penis to shower next to girls at the gym; it is a human right for girls to say “no” to this new brand of rape culture.

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