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January 2020

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The New Post-Trump Constitution By Victor Davis Hanson

By on January 14th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/new-post-trump-consti
The new normal: Impeachment as a routine partisan tool, endless investigations, lying under oath with impunity, surveillance of political enemies, zero accountability …

T he Left sees Donald Trump’s comportment, rallies, and tweets as a new low in presidential behavior that justifies extraordinary countermeasures. But Trump’s personal characteristics are idiosyncratic and may or may not become institutionalized by subsequent presidents. And it is not as if liberal icons such as FDR, LBJ, JFK, and Bill Clinton suddenly became saintly in office.

What is far scarier is the reaction to Trump, in both the constitutional and political sense. What follows are likely the new norms for the next generation of presidents, and they will probably be equally applied to Democrats who implemented them in the Trump era.

1) Private presidential phone calls with foreign leaders will be leaked and printed in the major media. The point will be not so much to air breaking news as to embarrass the president or to use such disclosures to stymie his foreign policy. Those who leak such information will be canonized as part of a “resistance.” Prominent officials in government will publish anonymous op-eds in the New York Times bragging about how they are daily undermining a new president’s administration.

2) Impeachment is now a casual affair. It requires no report of illegal or unethical behavior by a special counsel or special prosecutor. It will not be bipartisan but solely the action of the opposition party in the House when it is in the majority.

Public support will not matter. Much less will it be needed. Impeachment will be applied equally to a first- or second-term presidency. And it will become useful in a reelection year to help drive down an incumbent’s popularity.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s education minister gets taught a lesson Rafi Peretz should spend more time on Israel’s academic record and school curricula, and less time poking around in the business of family choices.

By on January 14th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/israels-education-minister-gets-taught-a-lesson/

Israeli Education Minister Rafi Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and head of the right-wing Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) Party, indicated this week—for the second time since being appointed last June to the interim post—how poorly suited he is for his job.

Peretz caused an uproar in July, a mere few weeks into his temporary tenure, when he said in a televised interview that he had experience in conducting successful gay conversion therapy.

In a move illustrating his inability to learn a lesson, Peretz put his foot in his mouth again over the past weekend, telling the Hebrew daily Yediot Achronot that marriage between a man and a woman is the definition of a “normative family.”

When asked what he would do if one of his own kids came out of the closet, he basically replied that he’s lucky not to have to worry about such a scenario. “Thank God,” he said, “my children were raised in a natural and healthy way … and are building their homes on Jewish values.”

Oy.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump administration starts returning migrants DEEP INTO MEXICO to combat border crisis Adam Shaw, 

By on January 14th, 2020

www.foxnews.com/politics/us-mexican-migrants-mexico-border-crisis

Trump administration starts returning migrants DEEP INTO MEXICO to combat border crisis
Adam Shaw, FoxNews.com

The Trump administration has started returning Mexican migrants deep into the country’s interior as part of an expanding effort to deter illegal immigration and combat the ongoing crisis at the border.

The Department of Homeland Security started running flights from Tucson, Ariz., to Guadalajara in December. Officials say the migrants being returned are all Mexican nationals from non-border Mexican states who typically have either recently illegally entered the U.S., or who had gone through the court system but were ruled to be deportable by an immigration judge.

The plan marks a departure from past practice of releasing migrants at the border. The idea would be to make it harder for repeat offenders to try and cross the border again if they are returned hundreds of miles away. Officials say returning people closer to their hometowns is better for them as well, and allows them to receive services from the Mexican government.

DHS says it plans to run two flights a week starting at the end of January and expects to return about 250 migrants a week. Officials say the move has been requested by the Mexican government, with which the U.S. has been working for months to stem the border crisis — which peaked in May but still concerns officials.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

Hillary Clinton Vindicated On Corruption Charges?

By on January 14th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/01/14/hillary-clinton-vindicated-on-corruption-charges-hardly/

 Hardly
I&I Editorial Board

Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department had wound down a Hillary Clinton-related inquiry after finding “nothing of consequence.” That set off a series of Hosannas from the allegedly non-partisan press, which seems to notice quid pro quos only when they involve a Republican.

A quick review of the flagrantly corrupt dealings of the Clinton Foundation is in order.

When Hillary took the job of secretary of state under President Barack Obama, she promised that the foundation wouldn’t accept foreign donations. It took in money from at least seven foreign governments.

Documents showed that 85 of the 154 private interests who met with Clinton at the State Department had donated money to the foundation.

Emails unearthed by Judicial Watch showed that Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin – who worked for both the State Department and the foundation –  gave “special expedited access to the secretary of state” for those who gave $25,000 to $10 million.

Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash” exposed other unsavory entanglements between the foundation, government policy, and the Clintons’ pocketbooks.

As the late great columnist Charles Krauthammer put it, the foundation was “a massive family enterprise disguised as a charity” that was intended to help restore the Clintons to power.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

“A Look Back to the Past Decade” Sydney Willams

By on January 14th, 2020

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

In his 1961 work, A Study of History (a study of the rise and fall of twenty-three civilizations), Arnold Toynbee concluded that civilizations die from suicide, not by murder, brought on by a decline in the moral fiber of society. When a New York Times reporter compared the killing of Qassim Soleimani to the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Left never blinked, despite the implied insult to the Reverend King, his family and followers. When the West fails to defend the genocide of Christians in Africa, but are supplicant to Muslims who murder them, does that reflect a moral stance or a fear of retaliation? “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage,” spoke Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at the Harvard commencement in 1978. The decline in moral courage has worsened over the past forty-two years. We in the West are more prosperous than ever before, yet we are filled with discontent: If we are black, we are victims; if we are white, we are supremacists; if we are Jews, we are subject to anti-Semitism; if we are Asian, we suffer from reverse discrimination. Unemployment, including minority unemployment, is the lowest in fifty years, and 2019 year-over-year wage growth was the highest for low-wage earners. Yet few of us seem happy with who we are. Perhaps because family has been subordinated to the village and the state?

There were, during the past decade, trends that might be a cause of this despair. While none began in the Twenty-teens, they accelerated over the past ten years. All stem from a desire for power, a sense of political correctness and identity politics coated in hypocrisy, and a belief we should apologize for the success we have had, individually and collectively. We were told we didn’t build the business we built. We tear down statues that represent our history. Hashtags rule and victimization reigns. In colleges and universities, the humanities have been attacked as representing only dead white males who promoted exclusivity. We are told to be inclusive, but not when it comes to political opinions. Where, for example, is the diversity of ideas promoted by a racially and sexually diverse slate of Democrat candidates for President?

Four trends come to mind: The increasing estrangement between bureaucratic global institutions like the United Nations and the European Union and the nation states that compose them; the aging of populations, especially in Western nations and Japan; the decline of participation in organized religion, and the curtailment of free speech. The consequence has been disillusionment and partisanship, fueled by supercilious entertainers and journalists whose readership and viewership are in decline.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

WILLARD “MEDEA” ROMNEY

By on January 14th, 2020

‘Stronger than lover’s love is lover’s hate.” ”
“How I wish I might see him and his bride in utter ruin” MEDEA- By William Shakespeare

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/13/trump-impeachment-trial-senate-independence-romney-collins-column/4443789002/

hell hath no fury like a candidate scorned by William Congreve
First written as “Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.” in the 1697 play The Mourning Bride (Act III Scene 2) by Congreve, falesly attribute to William Shakespear

►Mitt Romney of Utah. The former Republican presidential nominee called Trump’s pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “wrong and appalling.” This reaction was predictable from Romney, who spoke out against Trump in 2016 and has continued to be critical. In an October interview with USA TODAY, Romney, 72, described himself as free to do “entirely what I believe is absolutely right. … And I hope that my kids down the road will say, ‘Yeah, you know our dad, our grandfather, our great-grandfather was a person of integrity and honored his oath of office.’ ” That sounds like a man who is ready to draw a sharp contrast with Trump.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Black Conservatives in America Edward Ring

By on January 14th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/13/black-conservatives-in-america/
Here are links to more black conservatives, showing how to find them:
Justin Wilson, Antonia Okafor, Candace Owens, Dr. Carol Swain, Chandler Crump, CJ Pearson, Anthony Brian Logan, David J Harris Jr., Lynnett Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson (Diamond and Silk), Jesse Lee Peterson, KingFace, Larry Elder, Mike Nificent, Allen West, Pastor Mark Burns, Patricia Dickson, Horace Cooper (Project 21), Shekinah Geist, Stacy Dash, Star Parker, Terrence K Williams, Taleed Brown, Keith Hodge and Kevin Hodge, Brandon Tatum, Will Johnson, Wayne Dupree, Jon Miller, Jamarcus Dove-Simmons, Derrick Blackman, Joy Villa, Mind of Jamal, Jermain Botsio, Jay McCaney.

Ideology is color blind. Patriotism is color blind. Faith is color blind. As Benjamin Franklin once said, we must hang together, or surely we shall hang separately.

Mainstream liberal Democrats and their allies in the media have made clear that “demographics is destiny,” and that destiny favors Democrats. It’s easy enough to see why they believe this: nonwhites constituted 15 percent of the population in 1960, by 2050 that will have risen to 53 percent, and nonwhites vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

The answer most mainstream conservatives have to this challenge is to try harder. Convince nonwhites to vote for conservative candidates, even if that means giving up all the entitlements that Democrats have used for decades to purchase votes and create dependency. It’s a tough sell.

Not-so-mainstream conservatives are as likely to give up as to try harder. Consider this comment made in rebuttal to a recent article “Race and Realignment in the Anglosphere,” which had made the case for trying harder:

More pandering, compromise and continual hope that the invaders, who are relentlessly beating us politically, will suddenly draw back and change orientations is foolish. It is just more of the same old “conservative” born-to-lose mentality, no matter how nicely presented. We already know the result of the experiment you suggest, we lose everything, America becomes Brazil, and the multi-generational white majority, “Americans” as we think of ourselves, we will become a minority, in our only nation. And a targeted and hated one, at that . . . Let’s start seriously talking about the separation.

The problem with this comment, however well argued, is that it argues for something even more impossible. There will be no CalExit, there will be no sovereign American Redoubt, there will be no independent Atzlan. Because other than via a cataclysmic collapse that nobody should wish for, the United States is not going to split up. And even if separation is Plan B, shouldn’t Plan A—a massive nationalist political realignment—first be given a fighting chance?

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Unequal Fates: A Real Obama Era Whistleblower vs. the Trump ‘Whistleblower’ Julie Kelly

By on January 14th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/13/unequal-fates-a-real-obama-era-whistleblower-vs-the-trump-whistleblower/

As the Trump impeachment drama continues to unfold on Capitol Hill, the so-called whistleblower in that case enjoys hero-martyr status on the Left and in the news media. Lt. General Michael Flynn has enjoyed no such treatment.

The whistleblower, speaking to internal investigators, pulled no punches in his assessment of the government’s mishandling of the war in Afghanistan.

“As intelligence makes its way up higher, it gets consolidated and really watered down, it gets politicized,” he explained. “It gets politicized because once policymakers get their hands on it . . . they put their twist on it. The policy decisions and the operational decisions, I don’t think matched what the intelligence was saying.”

The 33-year decorated Army officer—with a lengthy career in military intelligence and service in both Afghanistan and Iraq—blasted the “rosy” scenarios promoted by top officials, including the White House, that contradicted what was actually happening on the ground.

“This sense that we are doing great permeates all the way up to the top,” he continued. “As a senior intel officer for many years, my assessments were not good. [I] said it was not at all going well. Never. We are basically fighting the wrong way. We are participating in conflict, we are not really here to win.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Is Destroying Multilateralism; Trump Is Creating a New Order by Gordon G. Chang

By on January 14th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15439/china-destroying-multilateralism

If Wang Binyang is selected in March, she will be able to bend international rules to favor her country’s assault on others’ technology. In any event, her nomination reveals Beijing brazen ambition to dominate multilateral institutions…. Beijing’s placement of officials inside multilaterals has greatly facilitated its malign activities.

From its perch on the UN Security Council, for instance, Beijing has placed itself in a position to attack freedom and democracy. It was the force behind a just-passed, Russian-sponsored General Assembly resolution to create a new convention that, many fear, will be used to restrict online expression worldwide.

“Why is the World Bank loaning money to China?” President Trump tweeted on December 6, “Can this be possible?”

The institutions created after the Second World War, unfortunately, are not adapting well to this century. The ardent proponents of multilateralism have failed to protect global institutions. China has undermined them from the inside, and now those advocates are not dealing with Chinese predation but instead taking potshots at Trump’s corrective efforts.

Trump has cooperated with international organizations when he could and has worked to replace the others. As he moves forward, he is creating a more realistic and enduring international order.

China, the world’s leading cyberattacker and master intellectual property thief, in November nominated one of its nationals to head the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization. If Wang Binyang is selected in March, she will be able to bend international rules to favor her country’s assault on others’ technology. In any event, her nomination reveals Beijing’s brazen ambition to dominate multilateral institutions.

Beijing’s placement of officials inside multilateral institutions has greatly facilitated its malign activities. Take the case of Fang Liu, the secretary general of the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Last February, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported that she hindered the investigation of a November 2016 cyberattack, called the “most serious” in that institution’s history. Emissary Panda, a hacker group with ties to the Chinese government, was thought to be behind assaults on the ICAO’s network. Dr. Liu came to the UN’s ICAO from China’s aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Liu protected, among others, James Wan, the ICAO’s deputy director and head of information and communication technology, who repeatedly undermined the probe into the cyberattacks. Wan has current links to two institutions associated with a known hacker, China’s People’s Liberation Army.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Still among the World’s Worst Jailers of Journalists by Uzay Bulut

By on January 14th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15307/turkey-jailing-journalists

“Scores of journalists remain behind bars or under travel bans as a consequence of an extended, politically motivated crackdown against the media.” — “Turkey’s Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate”, September 13, 2019.

“A subsequent wide-ranging capture of the judiciary has progressively and severely damaged the rule of law and the public’s right to access information…” — “Turkey’s Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate”, September 13, 2019.

“Pre-trial detention for hundreds of journalists has lasted for months and sometimes years before investigations are completed and the trials can begin.” — “Turkey’s Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate”, September 13, 2019.

According to the latest report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Turkey fell below its ranking as the world’s worst jailer of journalists for the first time in four years — dropping behind even China. That rating is not exactly indicative of an improvement in Ankara’s stance towards the media. On the contrary, as CPJ revealed on December 11:

“[T]he fall to 47 journalists in jail from 68 [in 2018] reflects the successful efforts by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to stamp out independent reporting and criticism by closing down more than 100 news outlets and lodging terror-related charges against many of their staff.”

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