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September 2020

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trouble Brewing in Central America The region has issues that the Trump administration can’t afford to ignore. By Mary Anastasia O’Grady

By on September 14th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trouble-brewing-in-central-america-11600028832?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

President Trump made a deal with Central American governments and Mexico to end the 2018-19 migration crisis by requiring asylum seekers from Central America to register in a transit country before seeking U.S. entry.

Since then, the administration has taken a “problem solved” attitude toward Central America. In fact there are still plenty of regional worries that Mr. Trump ought to take seriously.

Exhibit A is El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has been widely praised as a good friend of the U.S. but may not be so hot after all.

The 39-year-old Mr. Bukele was raised, politically speaking, by the left-wing FMLN party, formed by Salvadoran guerrillas after the civil war. He was elected FMLN mayor of the city of Nuevo Cuscatlán in 2012 and FMLN mayor of the capital, San Salvador, in 2015. But he ran for president in 2019 on a third-party ticket, defeating both traditional parties: the FMLN and the center-right Arena party. Today he heads the New Ideas party.

Mr. Bukele claims he no longer holds the ideological beliefs of the FMLN of his youth. But he has retained the instincts that made him a young star in the party.

In his first year in office he has shown himself to be an ambitious populist with an authoritarian streak. In February he stunned the nation when he marched into the Salvadoran Congress with armed soldiers and sat in the speaker’s chair in an effort to intimidate lawmakers who were not rubber-stamping his proposals.

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The Chinese Communist Party’s Dangerous Bid for the U.N. Human Rights Council By Jimmy Quinn

By on September 14th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/the-chinese-communist-partys-dangerous-bid-for-the-u-n-human-rights-council/

T he Chinese party-state is engaged in a years-long campaign to wipe out ethnic minority identities within its borders, to do away with the vestiges of democratic governance in Hong Kong, and otherwise to silence dissenting voices. But that would barely register if you followed these developments through the proceedings of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which convenes on Monday to begin a new session.

The council’s 47 members are granted two-year terms in annual elections, the next of which will take place in October. China, which has served four of these terms since the body’s creation in 2006, isn’t currently a member but will be a candidate this time around. It doesn’t take a human-rights lawyer to see the problem with Chinese membership of the body.

Each time the country seeks a seat, there’s a futile — but honorable — attempt by human-rights defenders to point out Beijing’s egregious record on these issues. The latest of these attempts came this past week, in the form of a letter signed by over 300 non-governmental organizations: “China has targeted human rights defenders abroad, suppressed academic freedom in countries around the world, and engaged in internet censorship and digital surveillance,” they wrote.

International pressure has mounted as the human-rights situation in China deteriorates. The Hong Kong crackdown brought one wave of criticism, as did new evidence of a population-control campaign in Xinjiang. The situation has become so dire that in June, dozens of U.N. human-rights experts called for an unprecedented special meeting of the council to discuss the human-rights abuses of the Chinese Communist Party. This is an improvement over the silence that once reigned, but don’t count on that meeting to even take place.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Why Trump Is Winning Over Hispanics By Rich Lowry

By on September 14th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/why-trump-is-winning-over-hispanics/

EXCERPT

Florida senator Rick Scott has an advanced degree in winning Hispanic voters as a Republican.

It has buoyed him in all his races, most recently his victory in his 2018 Senate race after serving two terms as governor, so he seems a logical person to ask about President Donald Trump’s eye-popping improvement among Hispanics in Florida.A Marist/NBC poll last week had Trump narrowly ahead of Biden among Hispanics in Florida, and the president is leading handily among Cuban Americans.

Scott’s bottom line: “What I did, as governor, is I showed up, and Trump’s doing the same thing.”…..

Pence rolled out “Latinos for Trump” in Miami in June of last year, although the group hadn’t really stopped its outreach since the 2016 campaign. It’s made millions of voter contacts. Meanwhile, according to Politico, Trump has been outspending Biden in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale media market, much of it in the form of Spanish-language ads.

The Trump team considers the Democrats culturally tone-deaf, whether it’s the attempted boycott of Goya, a staple of Cuban-American households; the push to use the ridiculous term “Latinx”; or the emphasis on the word “progressive,” which echoes the self-description of Latin America’s Communist regimes.

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BOOKS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Journalism or partisanship? The media’s mistakes of 2016 continue in 2020 By Sharyl Attkisson,

By on September 14th, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/516036-journalism-or-partisanship-the-medias-mistakes-of-2016-continue-in-2020

If there were any doubt left after 2016 as to what too much of the mainstream news media in America has become, it most certainly has been erased in 2020. Too often, many in my industry have revealed themselves as little more than propaganda tools for dueling political sides, no longer reporting the way journalists once did. We compete for the latest anonymous “scoop,” scandalous rumor or unsupported accusation. We pounce on the supposed “bombshell” du jour and hype it on the news, accompanied by endless round robins with political operatives. Many of us don’t even bother to find and report on stories that powerful people and interests aren’t pushing.

To do this, too many of us have abandoned basic tenets of journalism. We ignore the suspicious timing of the handout “leaks” or scandals — as if nobody notices. We fail to explore or disclose sources’ motivations or conflicts of interest — as if nobody wonders about them. We don’t even pretend to assess the true news value of the “bombshell.” We’re simply happy to be of service to the propagandists; we invite them to use us, and our superiors reward us with admiration. Many of our peers either repeat the reporting, seek to confirm it using equally dubious methods or discredit it. Rarely do we step back and consider that the whole drama is being orchestrated by political puppet masters who count their successes by the number of news stories they generate.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘We Hope They Die’ Protesters cheer a shooting ambush of sheriff’s deputies in L.A.

By on September 14th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-hope-they-die-11600031160?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

No one other than the shooter is responsible for the gunfire ambush Saturday of two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies as they sat in their patrol car. But the same can’t be said for the protesters who blocked the entrance to the hospital where the two are being treated, and chanted “we hope they die.” The latter is a cultural poison nurtured by the left-wing anti-police movement sweeping the country.

The two deputies were “ambushed by a gunman in a cowardly fashion” in the Compton neighborhood, said Sheriff Alex Villaneuva at a press conference. The deputies hadn’t been identified by name as we write this, but press reports say one is a 31-year-old mother and the other a 24-year-old man. Both have been with the department a little more than a year.

Police haven’t identified a suspect, but the randomness of the ambush suggests someone looking for any available police target. We’ve seen this before when anti-police fever is hot. A gunman shot and killed two officers in their car in New York in 2014 following the death of black suspects being arrested in Ferguson, Mo., and New York.

The protests are worse this year following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the anti-police violence is more widespread. An officer was stabbed in the neck in Flatbush in New York City in an ambush in June. The officer survived.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Biden and the Democrats Would Have Bungled the Coronavirus Response By Kyle Smith

By on September 13th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-democrats-would-have-bungled-response/

With help from the media, they are shamelessly obscuring their own disastrously misguided instincts.

C riticism of President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus for the most part centers not on policy but on style: The president made many ill-considered and inaccurate remarks, and he tried to happy-talk his way through the situation. His habit of going off message, which appears to be incurable, gives his opponents a steady stream of ammunition with which to attack him. As for the happy talk, there was an awful lot of that going around.

As David Harsanyi points out, on the day Trump tweeted that the virus is “very much under control,” Nancy Pelosi was urging her constituents to visit Chinatown in San Francisco. That was February 24. On March 5, Bill de Blasio was urging New Yorkers to “get out on the town despite coronavirus.” As late as March 19, Andrew Cuomo was still playing Kevin Bacon in Animal House — “Remain calm, all is well!” he cried, as he got flattened. Cuomo told us “the fear and panic is, if anything, worse than the virus,” though it turned out that the virus was actually quite a bit worse, and a little more fear and panic earlier in the year would have been useful in limiting its spread.

Trump’s inclination to play down the virus was widely shared, and I see no reason to think a President Obama or Biden would not also have struck an optimistic tone, albeit without the hyperbole that characterizes everything Trump says. I think Obama would have very calmly and suavely reassured us that he had things under control and that everything would be okay. That’s what leaders do, isn’t it? As a general rule, “Don’t panic” is a wise message, just not in this special case.

By mid-March, it was too late. The map of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. overlays neatly onto a map of the New York City area’s mass-transit routes. Should this be laid at Trump’s feet? Was Trump supposed to shut down the trains? Did he even have the authority to do that? Can Cuomo and de Blasio really look Trump in the eye and say, “I respect you so much that I obviously would have complied if you had only suggested we shut down the trains”?

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Students at Expensive, Private Skidmore College Demand Art Professor Be Fired For Watching Pro-Cop Demonstration By Rick Moran

By on September 13th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/09/13/students-at-expensive-private-skidmore-college-demand-art-professor-be-fired-for-watching-pro-cop-demonstration-n924862

An art professor at Skidmore College in upstate New York wanted to see how the unrest in America is affecting his community. So he attended a “Back the Blue” rally to see what was happening. He didn’t go to the rally as a participant. He went as an observer. He was there for about 20 minutes.

“Given the painful events that continue to unfold across this nation, I guess we just felt compelled to see first-hand how all of this was playing out in our own community,” the professor said.

But do you think that mattered to the mob now calling for his head?

The art professor, David Peterson, was apparently observed at the rally, which immediately triggered the triggerable snowflakes. They demanded he be fired for “engaging in hateful conduct that threatens Black Skidmore students.”

Reason.com:

“The Petersons weren’t wearing pro-police T-shirts,” notes Churchill. “They weren’t carrying a banner, holding a sign or waving a black-and-blue flag. They appear to just be listening. But merely listening to an opinion that some Skidmore students find objectionable is apparently enough to get a professor in hot water.”

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Trigger Warning: The American Flag is ‘Sensitive Content’ at Baylor University In Texas By Rick Moran

By on September 13th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/09/13/trigger-warning-the-american-flag-is-sensitive-content-at-baylor-university-in-texas-n924987

Every September 11, the Young Conservatives of Texas place a flag memorial in a prominent place on campus as a way to remember the victims of 9/11.

But this year, the YCT ran afoul of the mob who forced school authorities to place a warning sign in front of the display.  The sign cautioned the easily triggered of “sensitive” content.

Daily Caller:

“The Young Conservatives of Texas at Baylor are highly disappointed in Baylor’s conduct in this matter. We have consistently proven that we are dedicated to conducting a respectful and apolitical 9/11 memorial and have never even asked to put our name with this event,” Baylor YCT Chair Jake Neidert told the DCNF.

“At the end of the day, Young Conservatives of Texas stands for Principles over Party, and today Baylor made a 9/11 memorial out to be a sensitive partisan and political event. Memorializing 9/11 isn’t political or sensitive, it’s distinctly American,” Neidert added.

Ah, my precious children. The fact that it’s “American” is the reason it’s “sensitive.”

I’ve never been able to understand the mindset that simply seeing the American flag or anything “American” should trigger anyone. It’s simple-minded to be triggered in the first place and we should expect more from people attending an institution of higher learning.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Who Are These ‘Unemployed’ Donors Contributing Nearly Half of Democrat Group ActBlue’s Massive Campaign Funds? By Rick Moran,

By on September 13th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/09/13/who-are-these-unemployed-donors-contributing-nearly-half-of-democrat-group-actblues-massive-campaign-funds-n925065

The fundraising group ActBlue is the most successful leftwing money group in the country. In 2019, they raised more than $467 million from 3.7 million donors.

But there are questions where a lot of that money comes from. More than 40 percent of the cash came from donors who said they were “unemployed.” Federal law requires that political donors disclose the name of their employer in giving money.

By contrast, a GOP group called WinRed raised $301.8 million in 2019 but only 5 percent of the donors were unemployed.

Take Back Action Fund, a conservative group, examined the ActBlue fundraising figures. They found the discrepancies and are continuing to see if they can track down who these unemployed donors are.

The fear is that foreign sources have been funneling millions of dollars into liberal coffers in violation of U.S. law.

Fox News:

“After downloading hundreds of millions of [dollars in] donations to the Take Back Action Fund servers, we were shocked to see that almost half of the donations to ActBlue in 2019 claimed to be unemployed individuals,” he said. “The name of employers must be disclosed when making political donations, but more than 4.7 million donations came from people who claimed they did not have an employer. Those 4.7 million donations totaled $346 million ActBlue raised and sent to liberal causes.”

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

Ten Great Deceptions Designed to Destroy the Republic Judith Acosta

By on September 13th, 2020

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/ten_great_deceptions_designed_to_destroy_the_republic.htm

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…I was a Madison Avenue copywriter. I was thrilled, until I realized I was a liar for hire.

I was assigned an ad for a diet aid. The account executive sent out the marketing strategy. When I read it, I felt something akin to an inner eye squint, the feeling you get when you suspect you’re being conned. I realized we were being asked to market this rather dubious product to young, anorexic women by capitalizing on their already-fragile sense of self and lying to them about what the product could be expected to do.  

So I wrote the ad that changed my life. It featured a close-up of the product with the headline “FAT CHANCE.” I was the only one who appreciated the irony.

Ah, well.   

I soon realized that in the sport of marketing (sic: lying) I’d never be a team player and that I’d have to find an honest way to make a living.

Since then, the great spin turbines in Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and D.C. have spawned a culture built on an ever-destabilizing pyramid of lies which cannot support the existence of a republic, the essence of which is self-governance.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the political arena. The other night after the live broadcast of the Republican National Convention, a friend called. She said she had been flipping back and forth from the real-time telecast to CNN and MSNBC. She was irate: “You’d never have known they were speaking about the same show. Everything they said was completely disingenuous, if not bald-faced lies.”

In the last ten years or so it has become increasingly evident that you are are either believing what the left (or the diet pill manufacturer) is saying or you are paying attention to reality.

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