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February 2020

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App made by Clinton campaign veterans’ firm is behind Iowa caucuses debacle By Jeff Bercovici, Melanie Mason

By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04/clinton-campaign-vets-behind-2020-iowa-caucus-app-snafu

On a tense, chaotic night, with the eyes of the nation trained on the Iowa caucuses, that state’s Democratic Party was counting on a slick new smartphone app to make everything go smoothly.

The app was coded by a tech firm run by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, one of them a former Google engineer. It was designed to meet new requirements instituted after that year’s contentious Iowa caucuses, in which Clinton narrowly edged out Bernie Sanders. To provide more transparency this time around, the state party promised to report not just the final results but voters’ initial and second choices as well.

With so much more data to tabulate than in previous years, party leaders feared that the established system of reporting numbers by phone would be too slow. A proposal for a “tele-caucus” system enabling virtual voting was rejected as too vulnerable to hacking. An app that could instantaneously relay the numbers as soon as precinct chairs input them, developed by Democratic Party loyalists, looked like the perfect solution.

It turned out to be a crushing failure.

Throughout the long, long night, precinct chairs found themselves unable to make the app work properly. Some never figured out how to download or install it in the first place. Those who tried to report their results via a backup phone line found themselves on hold, sometimes for more than an hour.

Results from Monday’s caucuses could not be transmitted to Iowa party headquarters, and state Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price blamed the problem on a coding error. “While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld,” he said in a statement Tuesday morning.

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The Anti-Islamist Muslim Challenging Ilhan Omar by Abigail R. Esman

By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.investigativeproject.org/8287/the-anti-islamist-muslim-challenging-ilhan-omar

All that journalist Dalia al-Aqidi was asking for was a brief interview, one-on-one, to air on a TV station in the Middle East. She was, after all, one of the region’s best-known and most accomplished international reporters. But then-newly-elected Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar refused even to respond to her request.

Now al-Aqidi, an Iraqi refugee who has lived in the United States since 1988, is challenging Omar to represent Minnesota’s 5th Congressional district.

The decision to run for office didn’t come easily to the 51-year-old al-Aqidi. But “after Omar was elected, her activities and her statements – it offended me as an American, as a Muslim, and it offended me as an immigrant, and that made me concentrate on her activities,” she explained in a recent Skype interview. Omar’s non-response to her interview request, though, was what ultimately set her on her current path. “After that I said, ‘I don’t want to interview her. I’m going to talk to her district, and talk to her people.'”

In the process, she found that although Omar is herself a Somali refugee, many of her constituents, and particularly those in the Somali community, felt much the way al-Aqidi did. “Ilhan Omar is trying to give a false picture of what immigrants want,” al-Aqidi says. “People now think Somalis come to the U.S. to sit and get handouts, and come for free this and free that – it’s not true at all. [So] now a large percentage of her own Somali community can’t stand her anymore, because they see the damage she is doing to them.”

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Joe Biden: Ukraine and Burisma’s Sugar Daddy Julie Kelly

By on February 4th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/03/joe-biden-ukraine-and-burismas-sugar-daddy/

No one has challenged the former vice president to account for the billions in U.S. tax dollars he pumped into Ukraine for his own personal and political gain. How did Biden’s involvement gild his largely disastrous foreign policy legacy before his latest run for president?

If Joe Biden fails to win the White House this year, perhaps he can run for president of Ukraine. After all, Ukrainians owe him—big time.

As the White House’s point man in Ukraine during Barack Obama’s second term, Biden acted more like he owned the place: threatening to withhold aid, forcing government officials to be fired, forming special agencies to portray himself as a fighter of international government corruption.

“No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President Joe Biden,” according to a profile on Biden in Foreign Policy magazine a few weeks before the 2016 presidential election. “Ukraine’s government has relied heavily on its direct channel to the U.S. vice president, and Biden’s departure will leave a gaping hole.”

For three years, capitalizing on the country’s political upheaval and armed with congressional authorization to lead yet another nation-building exercise, the vice president drove the gravy train between Washington and Kyiv. That train, laden with goodies courtesy of unsuspecting American taxpayers, got heavier as Obama’s presidency drew to a close. Ukrainian officials were so worried about losing Biden and gaining Donald Trump that they engaged in their own election chicanery in 2016.

While Biden’s son, Hunter, is the main target of the president’s defenders and some of the more fair-minded journalists, the senior Biden also deserves plenty of scrutiny for the billions in American tax dollars he doled out to a nation rife with corruption, political unrest, and no mechanism to account for how those funds would be spent. President Trump has been impeached for briefly delaying appropriated funds to Ukraine last year, yet Biden has faced no questions on the campaign trail about his key role in directing huge sums of U.S. aid to Ukraine when he was vice president.

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Universities are Complicit in 1619 Project’s Disgusting Swindle by David Randall

By on February 4th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/03/universities-are-complicit-in-1619-projects-disgusting-swindle/

David Randall is Director of Research at the National Association of Scholars.

Of course Hannah-Jones doesn’t welcome pushback. But we expect better of our universities. They shouldn’t give their intellectual and moral authority to her gimcrack wares.

The backers of the New York Times’ 1619 Project don’t believe their hate-reading of American history can stand up to examination in the light of day. That’s the only conclusion to be drawn from their full flight from critics across the political spectrum.

Proponents of the 1619 Project—believers that the real founding of the country came with the landing of African slaves in Jamestown in 1619—are determined to foist their ideas on children who don’t have enough information to argue back. They’ll force teachers to teach its falsehoods as the only acceptable history. They’ll arrange “dialogues” throughout the nation, where their advocates say six sorts of nonsense and their carefully selected “interlocutors” reply, You’re so very right! But they’ll never allow for an open debate against an informed opponent.

They know the arguments behind the 1619 Project would fall to pieces if they did. So they carefully arrange matters so that no one ever gets a chance to say that the emperor has no clothes.

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More Government Spending Does Not Buy Results In Education Or Poverty Reduction Francis Menton

By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-2-3-more-government-spending-does-not-buy-results-in-education-or-poverty-reduction

Here in New York, we love to feel good about ourselves for our compassion for the less well off. Yes, we pay higher taxes than they do in other places, but for that we get a much higher level of social services to lift up the poor and the downtrodden. Or at least, that’s the narrative.

I first covered this subject back in the very early days of this blog, on November 13, 2012, in a post titled “Why New York City Is A High Tax Jurisdiction.” That post pointed out that in fact the differential in public spending (and therefore taxes) between New York City and other jurisdictions could be found almost entirely in three things, none of which provided any measurable improvements in life quality to the poor and the downtrodden. The three areas were (1) overspending on public pensions, brought about by early retirement ages that enable New York City workers to have 25 to 40 years of post-retirement leisure at taxpayer expense, (2) overspending on K-12 education, brought about by paying about double the number of workers as other jurisdictions use to do the same work, and (3) overspending on Medicaid, brought about by adding every possible bell and whistle to the program without improving health outcomes in any measurable way.

For example, I had this to say about New York City spending on K-12 education:

According to census bureau figures cited here, New York City school spending was about $19,000 per student in 2009.  That’s about double the nationwide average of $10,615 per student cited here for 2010.  What do we get for double the cost per student?  Worse test scores than the national average. . . .   With over a million school children, the extra $8000 per student is an $8 billion budget item.

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The Real Reason Arabs in Israel Do Not Want to Live in ‘Palestine’ by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15516/arab-israelis-peace-plan

Why are the 250,000 Arab Israelis living in the Triangle area strongly opposed to the idea of becoming part of a Palestinian state?

Many Arab citizens of Israel see how Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip are subject to human rights violations on a daily basis.

What the Arab citizens of Israel need now is to elect new leaders who will promote coexistence between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and not engage in anti-Israel rhetoric and actions.

Some of the leaders of the Arab citizens of Israel, particularly a number of Knesset members, have been acting against the interests of their constituents. It is almost as if these purported leaders represent the PA and Hamas instead of the Arab Israelis who voted for them with the hope that they would work to solve problems confronting their communities, such as unemployment.

The Arab citizens of Israel need real leaders who properly represent them in the Knesset and build — not destroy — bridges with Jews. Let the protests on the streets of Arab Israeli communities against becoming part of a Palestinian state serve as a fair warning to Israeli Arab leaders: stand by your people, or get out of the way.

Arab citizens of Israel, who number nearly two million, are up in arms about US President Donald Trump’s plan for Middle East peace, which proposes including some of their communities in a future Palestinian state. Since the unveiling of the plan, thousands of Arabs have been demonstrating to express their rejection of the idea of placing them under the sovereignty of a Palestinian state.

Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan proposes land swaps that could include both populated and unpopulated areas. It suggests that the so-called Triangle area in Israel, consisting of several Arab communities “which largely self-identify as Palestinian, become part of the State of Palestine.” The plan points out that the Arab communities “were originally designated to fall under Jordanian control during the negotiations of the Armistice Line of 1949, but ultimately were retained by Israel for military reasons that have since been mitigated.”

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Only 4 of Glasgow’s 71 Muslim Refugee Child Rapists Have Gone to Prison After a decade of investigations, no justice for the victims. Daniel Greenfield

By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/only-4-glasgows-71-muslim-refugee-child-rapists-daniel-greenfield/

By the summer of last year, Glasgow had the highest number of housed refugees in the UK with almost 10% of the “asylum seekers” setting up shop in the Scottish city. The overflow of refugees, many of them from Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, has brought in government money, but also violence and crime. Refugees whose requests for asylum are rejected refuse to leave and remain on in Glasgow.

Glasgow had been eager to cash in on asylum seekers, and in the last two decades was fundamentally transformed by the tide of migrants filling up its neighborhoods. As Pakistanis became the largest minority group in Scotland, 42% of the country’s Muslim population took up residence in Glasgow.

By the 2011 census, a fifth of Glasgow’s population was non-Scottish. In Pollokshields, a quarter of the population is Pakistani. Pollokshields is also where Kriss Donald, a 15-year-old Scottish teenage boy, was kidnapped in the spring of 2004, stabbed all over his body and then set on fire by a Pakistani gang.

“His violent death was a result of political correctness that has gripped the police in Scotland,” Mike Liddell, a senior police officer warned. “Crime within Glasgow’s Asian community has been allowed to grow unfettered for years. Why? Because the police have been afraid to fight it in case they are accused of racism.”

Ayub Khan, a member of the Multi-faith Coalition group in Pollokshields, agreed, “people know that the police are too scared to come into the area and be accused of racism.”

That was 15 years ago. 

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The Hate America Project How the NY Times, the Pulitzer Foundation and America’s cultural elite have aimed a dagger at America’s heart. David Horowitz

By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/dh-wednesday-lead-hate-america-project-david-horowitz/

Editorial Note: It’s time to recognize that the current ideologies of the progressive Left and the Democrat Party – Cultural Marxism and Identity Politics – pose existential threats to America’s survival.

America is unique among nations in being founded on a set of ideas and values rather than having a shared “identity” based on “blood and soil.” The founding of America during the revolutionary era 1776 – 1787 was based on principles that provide the sinews of our national identity. They are what create a unity out of the diverse peoples that have settled and occupied this country since its founding. They have been the inspirational force that enabled America to abolish slavery, become a global symbol of freedom, and provide the world’s chief bulwark against global tyrannies.

It is this inspirational memory that the political left has set out to erase and destroy. The most disturbing manifestation of this sinister aggression is the so-called “1619 Project,” the brainchild of a staff writer at The New York Times, named Nikole Hannah-Jones. It is supported by The Pulitzer Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution and the nation’s cultural elite. Six months after its launch, the “1619 Project” Is already a curriculum in 3,500 public high schools in all 50 states.[1] Given the extreme leftwing nature of the teacher unions and the public education establishment, while disturbing this is hardly surprising.[2]

The “1619 Project” is described by Times editorial board member Mara Gay in the following words: “In the days and weeks to come, we will publish essays demonstrating that nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery.”[3] In a formal statement, the Times editorial board elaborated: “The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.”[4]

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China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia Its financial markets may be even more dangerous than its wildlife markets. By Walter Russell Mead

By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-the-real-sick-man-of-asia-11580773677?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

The mighty Chinese juggernaut has been humbled this week, apparently by a species-hopping bat virus. While Chinese authorities struggle to control the epidemic and restart their economy, a world that has grown accustomed to contemplating China’s inexorable rise was reminded that nothing, not even Beijing’s power, can be taken for granted.

We do not know how dangerous the new coronavirus will be. There are signs that Chinese authorities are still trying to conceal the true scale of the problem, but at this point the virus appears to be more contagious but considerably less deadly than the pathogens behind diseases such as Ebola or SARS—though some experts say SARS and coronavirus are about equally contagious.

China’s initial response to the crisis was less than impressive. The Wuhan government was secretive and self-serving; national authorities responded vigorously but, it currently appears, ineffectively. China’s cities and factories are shutting down; the virus continues to spread. We can hope that authorities succeed in containing the epidemic and treating its victims, but the performance to date has shaken confidence in the Chinese Communist Party at home and abroad. Complaints in Beijing about the U.S. refusing entry to noncitizens who recently spent time in China cannot hide the reality that the decisions that allowed the epidemic to spread as far and as fast as it did were all made in Wuhan and Beijing.

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Elizabeth Warren is a climate hypocrite (and so is Bernie) By Andrea Widburg

By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/elizabeth_warren_is_a_climate_hypocrite_and_so_is_bernie.html

Elizabeth Warren has always been a phony. Her most obvious phony moment was claiming to be a Native American so that she could make the leap from state schools into the Ivy Leagues. Without that fake resume enhancer, she was merely a mediocre teacher; with it, she was a sop to the diversity gods.

She’s told other lies to burnish her records: she lied about her parents’ marriage, she lied about her father’s job, and she lied about her job prospects when she was first pregnant. Now, another lie has come to light: She’s been lying about being green.

Legal Insurrection puts the pieces together to explain that Elizabeth Warren never really divested herself of valuable oil-and-gas leases. Instead, she transferred them to her children so that they wouldn’t show up in her portfolio while she was enthusiastically supporting the Green New Deal:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) campaigns as an environmental activist, supporting the completely insane Green New Deal and stating that she will ban fracking on her first day in office.

As is often the case with Warren, what she says and what she does are very different things. The Wall Street Journal reports that Warren received income from oil and gas royalties in Oklahoma and that she transferred her holdings to her children before announcing her run for the Senate.

Warren latched on to the Green New Deal almost immediately.  She did not care that it was concocted originally as a means of restructuring “the entire economy,” with its socialist Justice Democrats creators only later slapping the green wash of “climate change” on it to make it more appealing to the left.

Back in August of 2018, investigative journalist Andrew Kerr reported that “Elizabeth Warren Earned Royalties From Natural Gas Producer With Long Rap Sheet Of Environmental Violations, Tax Returns Reveal.”

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