Displaying the most recent of 90914 posts written by

Ruth King

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Rising Star Carries on Stephen Harper’s Conservative Legacy in Canada 38-year-old Andrew Scheer was just elected as the leader of the Conservative party, and has a chance to wield Harper’s small-government vision against Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau. By Michael Taube

By on June 2nd, 2017

When Canada’s Conservative party picked a new leader on May 27, most political observers believed that the libertarian-leaning Maxime Bernier, a sitting member of parliament and former cabinet minister, would win by a comfortable margin. Instead, the party chose Andrew Scheer, an MP and ex-House speaker whose views more closely align with former prime minister Stephen Harper.

On the surface, this may seem like a puzzling decision. The common perception is that Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau won the 2015 federal election by presenting himself as a left-leaning alternative to Harper. And while Trudeau’s political honeymoon is over, he continues to hold solid personal approval ratings (46 percent, according to an April poll by Nanos Research) and remains a strong bet to win the next election in 2019.

Bernier, therefore, seemed to fit the growing international trend of new, dynamic political leaders with moderate fiscal sensibilities and social values. Scheer, a fiscal and social conservative by comparison, appeared to be a step backward in the eyes of some pundits, commentators, and columnists.

Appearances can be deceiving, however.

Scheer has been an MP since 2004. At 38, he’s seven years younger than Trudeau, and as a husband and father of five he maintains the same youthful outlook on life as the current PM. His time as deputy speaker (2008–11) and then speaker of the House (2011–15) also worked to his political advantage during the leadership campaign. These are nonpartisan positions without voting privileges, meaning that the bulk of his political career has been spent developing relationships with politicians of different stripes. Most have described him as a thoughtful, pleasant, and intelligent individual.

Meanwhile, Scheer’s conservative values are perceived to be the natural continuation of Harper’s political legacy. He’s been called “Stephen Harper with a smile,” and for good reason.

Like his predecessor, he believes in small government, lower taxes, cracking down on crime, and greater individual liberty. He wants to reestablish a more muscular foreign policy, getting Canada back into the important fight against radical Islamic terrorism. He also wants to maintain a big-tent party, and recognizes that the Conservatives must continue to expand and broaden their base to ensure long-term political success.

Continue reading →
MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

At the New York Times, a Public Execution The paper fires its public editor for resisting the Resistance. By Kyle Smith

By on June 2nd, 2017

‘Democracy dies in darkness,” declares the Washington Post, in a line that Dean Baquet, editor of the rival New York Times said, not inaccurately, “sounds like the next Batman movie.” Now the Times has joined the WaPo in dumping its designated internal soul-searcher (dubbed the “public editor” at the New York paper, “ombudsman” at the Washington one). So a more fitting DC Comics–style motto for both papers would be “Who will watch the Watchmen?”

That line (from Alan Moore’s Watchmen, with a nod to Juvenal) became painfully relevant to the Times’ exceptionally conscientious public editor, Liz Spayd, when she was fired and her position eliminated this week. Spayd served less than a year of her announced two-year term. News broke only on May 31 that her last day on the job would be two days after that, and the office of public editor would be replaced with a “reader center.” Read the comments beneath a Paul Krugman column sometime and you’ll gain some sense of what that might be like.

Why so hasty, premature, and unceremonious a sacking? Spayd, who said upon her appointment last summer that “I’m not here to make friends,” was apparently a little too good at not making them. A peeved Baquet called one of her efforts a “bad column” and “fairly ridiculous.”

Worse, Spayd was morally on the same team as lynch mobs, according to Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress in his piece “The dark history of how false balance journalism enabled lynching.” This was a slippery-slope argument in response to Spayd’s having said that journalists shouldn’t “apply their own moral and ideological judgments to the candidate.” Millhiser believed that the many felonies committed by Hillary Clinton in the course of shielding her e-mail from public scrutiny and removing classified information from secure channels was a non-story and that the Times should shut up about it.

The Atlantic attacked Spayd by approvingly quoting bloggers who wrote that Spayd, a 25-year veteran of the Washington Post who rose to the position of managing editor of that paper before editing the Columbia Journalism Review and then moving on to the Times, is “inclined to write what she doesn’t know” and that her work has become “iconic in its uselessness and self-parody.” Slate accused her of “squandering the most important watchdog job in journalism” by being too solicitous of the readers, notably when she wrote a column under the “smug” headline “Want to attract more readers? Try listening to them” and when she “sympathized with readers’ chauvinistic gripes about the Times’ sports page.” (The “chauvinists” quoted by Spayd were saying things like “Why are there big stories on Nordic surfing, German ice water swimming and Brazilian badminton and hardly any beat coverage of the Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Devils or Islanders?” The sports editor replied, in Spayd’s paraphrase, that “routine game coverage is not a priority.” Did I mention that the public-editor column was the second-funniest part of the resolutely humorless paper, after the corrections column?)

After Spayd told Tucker Carlson that some tweets by professionally neutral Times news reporters that displayed open contempt for and hostility to Donald Trump were “outrageous” and “over the line” and should face “some kind of consequence,” the blue-checkmark battalions rose up to denounce Spayd, calling her “the worst possible public editor for the Trump era” and “a disgrace,” adding that the Times had “embarrassed itself” by hiring her.

Spayd did her best to be even-handed in the eleven months she held the job. The angry Left could not forgive this.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Pressure’ Is Not Obstruction Comey was not ‘obstructed.’ By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on June 2nd, 2017

The thing to remember is that there’s a big difference between perceiving “pressure” and believing that you have witnessed the obstruction of an FBI investigation, a federal felony.

Take this to the bank: Over the next week, before the much-anticipated Senate testimony of former FBI director James Comey, the media-Democratic complex is going to spare no effort to convince you that the words “pressure” and “obstruction” are synonyms – you know, like the words “collusion” and “crime.”

They’re not.

It may very well be that former FBI director James Comey is prepared to testify, consistent with a leaked report of a memorandum written to himself, that he felt President Trump pressured him to drop the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national-security adviser.

Even if this were true, it would not mean Comey believed the president had committed felony obstruction. No one grasps this better than the former FBI director himself.

On that score, I’ve been surprised, since the story of Comey’s memo-to-self broke, to have been asked about the purported “contradiction” between the memo and Senate testimony the then-director gave in early May.

According to the memo (which has not been made public and from which only a selectively mined snippet has been reported), on February 14, President Trump told Comey, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” Based on this, CNN, relying on “a source close to the issue” (hmmm), claims that Comey is prepared to testify that he felt “pressured” to pull the plug on the investigation.

Compare this with his May 3 testimony. Answering questions put by Senator Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii), the then-director averred that he had never been directed by superiors to halt an FBI investigation.

Contrasting the two statements, Comey’s more fervid detractors accuse him of perjury. Should Comey testify next week that Trump pressured him in February, they reckon that either a) this claim or b) his May testimony that he’d never been “told to stop something for a political reason” would have to be false testimony.

It is a specious contention. First, Senator Hirono did not ask Comey about any direction given to him by the president. Her questions were about orders from the FBI director’s Justice Department superiors. (The FBI is part of DOJ, and the director is subordinate to the attorney general.)

More important, let’s assume that a question about whether he’d ever gotten a shut-down order from DOJ obliged Comey to include in his response any shut-down order he’d ever received from a president. (This assumption runs counter to perjury law, but let’s pretend.) The bottom line would still be that an order simply is not the same thing as pressure. Asserting that you have never been ordered to do something does not imply a representation that you have never been pressured to do that something.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Latest Hate Crime Hoax: Pakistani-American College Student Recants ‘Bias Attack’ Story By Debra Heine

By on June 2nd, 2017

Last Thursday, a Muslim college student in New York alleged that he was robbed by three masked men who “shoved him into a van” and “hurled racial epithets” at him.

The New York Post reported on his story with great gusto:

The 21-year-old student at New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn was walking on 165th Street near 81st Avenue in Hillcrest Thursday at 4:35 p.m. when a black van pulled up alongside him.

The goons jumped out of the vehicle and threw the victim — who they repeatedly punched in the face — in the back of the vehicle.

“Get out of my country, you f–king sand n—er!” one of the attackers yelled at the victim, who is from Pakistan, police sources said.

The trio stole his backpack and his wallet, which contained his school ID, and $6 before kicking him out of the van and speeding off.

The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force investigated the incident as a possible bias attack and PIX11 converged on the alleged crime scene “as detectives canvassed the neighborhood, talking to residents and taking with them home surveillance video that may have caught on tape the ugly crime.”

Well, there was an “ugly crime,” all right. Making a false report about a “hate crime” is a crime, after all.

It didn’t take long for the Pakistani-American’s tale of woe to fall apart. On Saturday, PIX11 reported that the student recanted his entire story. Police sources say the incident never happened. He made the whole thing up.

For some reason, the “victim’s” name was never released.

As we are in the midst of a college “hate crime hoax” epidemic, wouldn’t it behoove the media to tread a little more carefully when a college student alleges a hate crime — so they don’t have egg all over their faces when the inevitable recantation takes place?

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

VA Official Who Allowed Unsterile Instruments Lands ‘High-Ranking’ Job By Tyler O’Neil

By on June 2nd, 2017

The former head of Washington D.C.’s Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital, who was removed following a scathing report about the hospital’s lack of sterile surgical equipment, has been given a high-ranking post at the VA’s D.C. headquarters, according to NBC4.

“REMOVED as head of Wash DC VA Med Center after scathing audit, Brian Hawkins has landed high-ranking job at VA headquarters, per NBC4ITeam,” tweeted investigative reporter Scott MacFarlane.

Hawkins was demoted in April following an inspector general report which found that patients at the D.C. VA were at risk of infection due to a lack of sanitary equipment.

In one terrifying incident, a patient was prepared for vascular surgery and already put under anesthesia when the surgeon discovered he lacked the necessary equipment for the operation! The inspector general report also found discolored surgical instruments unsuitable for use, and reported that medical staff had to borrow supplies, including bloodlines and surgical pieces, from nearby centers.

The inspector general report listed 18 different sterile storage containers which were contaminated by dirty conditions. Investigators found expired medical equipment on site, and some of this expired equipment was even used in a June 2016 patient procedure.

In April, when the report came out, the VA announced it would take disciplinary action if appropriate. “VA’s top priority is to ensure that no patient has been harmed. If appropriate, additional disciplinary actions will be taken in accordance with the law,” the VA said in a statement. Here is a photo of Hawkins’ resignation speech.

Hawkins had worked as director of the D.C. VA medical center since 2011.

“It is nearly impossible to remove bad VA employees who engage in negligence or misconduct, even to the extent that Mr. Hawkins did,” declared Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) Policy Director Dan Caldwell in a statement. “A government employee who puts veterans in imminent danger obviously should not remain on the VA payroll, but Secretary Shulkin’s hands are tied.”

CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Over-Dramatization of Israel’s “Dilemma” By Dr. Max Singer

By on June 2nd, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel is not facing a dilemma about how much, if any, land to give up from the West Bank, because the Palestinians will not agree to take land and cannot be forced to do so. The Palestinian community sees peace with Israel as defeat in their 100-year struggle. Continued Israeli occupation is one of the Palestinians’ best weapons against Israel, and they will not give it up while their war to eliminate Israel continues. Israelis should recognize that since the Palestinians are forcing Israel to continue the temporary but long-term occupation, Israelis need to a) cooperate in reducing the moral and other costs of that occupation; and b) stop telling the world that Israel could choose to end the occupation. The occupation, like the need for military strength and to absorb casualties, is part of the price Israel has to pay to live here. Maturity means being able to go forward with no solution in sight.https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/overdramatization-israel-dilemma/

Ehud Barak recently had a long review in Haaretz of Micah Goodman’s important new book, Catch 67, to which Goodman responded the following week. Goodman argues that Israel’s 1967 victory created a “catch” or trap reflected in Israel’s current dilemma, in which both sides (the Israeli political left and right) are correct. Barak disagrees. In his view, the choice is clear: the left is correct.

Both Barak’s own view and his telling of Goodman’s ignore the reality of Israel’s actual choices today. We are not facing a dilemma about giving up territory. We are facing a distasteful task, and a need for patience over a period of decades.

Israel does not now have a choice about giving the Palestinians land or creating a Palestinian state; Israel is therefore not facing a dilemma.

While there are undoubtedly peace-seeking Palestinians, as a community, the Palestinians have not even begun to discuss the possibility of making a peace that accepts Israel and ends the Palestinian effort to gain all the land “from the river to the sea.” Nor have they begun public discussion of the possibility of most of the “refugees” settling outside Israel. Without debate among Palestinians, there is no way they can give up their determination to destroy Israel and make a genuine peace.

There is zero chance that there could be a real peace agreement now regardless of how much land Israel would be willing to give up.. A true two-state solution would finally defeat Palestinian and Arab efforts of a century, and they are not yet ready to accept defeat. Whatever disagreement there is among Israelis about how much land, if any, Israel should give up to get peace, that disagreement is not what is standing in the way of peace.

Theoretically, there are two other possibilities that might create a dilemma for Israel about giving up land. The first would be an agreement with the Palestinians to take over some of Judea and Samaria without making a full peace with Israel. The second would be a unilateral action by Israel to separate the peoples and end the occupation without Palestinian agreement.

For the reasons discussed below, neither of these is a realistic possibility regardless of how much of Judea and Samaria Israel is willing to give up. Again, no real dilemma.

The Palestinians have a voice in what happens. The choice they have made is to force Israel to “occupy” them, because they want to keep up the struggle to destroy Israel. Being a victim, an “occupied people,” improves their diplomatic position, causes Israel pain, and provokes internal conflict within Israel. These effects are bad for Israel and good for the Palestinians. Indeed, the more harmful they are for Israel, the more desirable they are for the Palestinians.

There would have to be a lot more disadvantages to the status quo for the Palestinians before they would give up such a weapon against Israel to improve their living conditions. This is especially true for the Palestinian leadership, which suffers less from the status quo than most Palestinians and benefits more from the continuation of the conflict.

But if the Palestinians will not make an agreement that would sacrifice the advantage of forcing Israel to be an “occupier”, is there any way that Israel can force them to do so by taking unilateral action to separate the peoples? This idea appealed to Sharon, and so he organized Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza. Some Israelis say the withdrawal was a good idea that only worked out badly because it was done unilaterally. But why should we think the Palestinians would have agreed to arrangements that would have been better for Israel? They consider themselves to be at war with us. They want to cause us pain and put us at a disadvantage, and are willing to accept casualties and suffering to do so.

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Report: Global Terrorism Has Tripled Since 2011, Now at an All-Time High By Patrick Poole

By on June 2nd, 2017

The Institute for Economics and Peace has released its annual “Global Peace Index” for 2017, reporting some shocking findings:According to the report, global terrorism has nearly tripled since 2011, and terrorism is now at an all-time high:

The Voice of America reports:

Worldwide terrorism is at an all-time high, and violence cost the global economy $14.3 trillion last year, with a $2.5 trillion impact in the United States alone.

These new figures from the latest Global Peace Index, a report on conflict and security, indicate that world peace has been deteriorating for the past decade, largely driven by terrorism and conflicts in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

The study says the decline interrupts long-term improvements the world had been making since the end of World War II.

According to the report, the annual number of terrorism incidents has almost tripled since 2011.

Deaths from terrorism have risen more than 900% since 2007 in the 35 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Of those members, 23 nations experienced terrorism related deaths over the past year.

Those countries include Denmark, Sweden, France and Turkey.

One eye-popping graphic from the report (p. 36):

This is quite a turnaround from this time last year during the presidential campaign — when the media was trumpeting supposed major declines in terrorism:Only a few were willing to acknowledge the growing terrorism problem developing in the West:After last month’s suicide bombing in Manchester, among other recent attacks, it appears that another “Summer of Terror” may be in the offing:

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How long before the Democrats call for a truce on the Russian probe? By Silvio Canto, Jr.

By on June 2nd, 2017

For some time, we’ve been watching the hysterical attacks on President Trump. The Democrats are calling for an “independent investigation.” Some are even calling for “impeachment” even though no one has identified a crime.

Well, don’t be surprised if the Democrats start calling for a truce and then back off completely. Why? Because the Obama investigation is about to be investigated, as James Rosen reported:

FOX News has confirmed that the FBI, the CIA, and the National Security Agency were all served today with subpoenas issued by the House Intelligence Committee. Sources say each of these subpoenas referenced unmasking and each named as figures of interest three senior Obama era officials.

Former White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice was identified by multiple news agencies last month as someone who requested the names of Trump associates whose names had appeared in coded form in classified intelligence reports be identifed for her — or ‘unmasked.’ Rice at the time denied wrongdoing and told us today through a spokesperson that she is unaware of any subpoenas ‘directed at her.’

Former CIA Director John Brennan is also named in the subpoenas. In testimony last week, Brennan decried the leaks of classified information that had bedeviled the Trump administration, and which some believe is linked to the unmasking activity. Brennan declined our request for comment.

Most noteworthy was the committee’s naming of Samantha Power, the former UN ambassador has not previously surfaced in the unmasking controversy. A Pulitzer prize-winning historian, Power served in Barack Obama’s Senate office before joining his administration.

House investigators told Fox News they are now devoting more scrutiny to Power, and they have come to see her role in the unmasking as ‘larger than previously known.’ Allegedly eclipsing the others named.

Oops, as someone said. This investigation could expose that the Obama administration was spying on U.S. citizens or unmasking them.

So don’t be surprised if the Democrats call for a truce or settlement to stop all of the investigations. The party lost its senses after Trump was elected. They could not accept the results, or the loss of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. They’ve been trying so hard to delegitimize the Trump presidency that they’ve opened the door that they didn’t want to open — an investigation of the Obama presidency.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Chastising Simon and Schuster By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on June 2nd, 2017

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/chastising_simon_and_schuster_.html

If you are disturbed about the gruesome photo shoot of Kathy Griffin depicting President Trumps’ severed head, then you will be equally disgusted at the comment of New York Times bestselling author children’s books Ken Jennings. Jennings tweeted the following:

Barron Trump saw a very long necktie on a heap of expired deli meat in a dumpster. He thought it was his dad & his little heart is breaking.

The left has no shame and that this former Jeopardy winner and author of children’s books should write this vile message should not go unnoticed. Jennings writes for Simon & Schuster. Thanks to a comment at the Gateway Pundit site, you can call the publisher at 1-800-223-2336, choose option 4 and let your voice be heard. I just did.

It is time to fight back.

Continue reading →
MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Politically Incorrect Hollywood: Some Films to see By Armando Simon

By on June 2nd, 2017

Although at times it feels—quite correctly—like one is swamped with Politically Correct propaganda in the movies and television and magazines, a number of films have been made over the years that buck the trend. Unfortunately, many of them have not been well-publicized and/or not as patronized by conservatives as they should have been. By comparison, every time Hanoi Jane, Michael Moore, or Oliver Stone make a movie, liberals trample themselves over in a mad stampede to support their propaganda movies; conservatives, on the other hand, when they hear of a movie that might be putting up a fight against the totalitarians, often stay at home scratching their rear ends, complaining that Hollywood doesn’t make enough movies that support their viewpoints—and then wait until the movie comes out at Redbox or Netflix.

So here is a list of movies that you might want to watch:

Red Family

Although Kim Ki-duk did not direct this film, he wrote and produced it and it still came out great. The film centers around North Korea sleeper agents passing themselves off as a South Korean family, all the while carrying out espionage and assassinations and maintaining a harsh discipline and ideological purity. Throughout, Damocles’ sword is hanging over their heads because they are being monitored by other agents. Although initially being vicious, cold-blooded killers, with time they become corrupted by their environment and start acting more human, and even humane, with foreseeable results.

Katyn

You have to feel for the Poles. The Russians Germans, and Austrians have repeatedly raped Poland over the centuries. The Katyn massacre is one of those items that make up That Which Must Not Be Mentioned about WWII (another one is that the Soviet Union and the Third Reich were allied during the first few years of the war as they had agreed to partition Europe between them, starting with Poland. Later, when one of the allies attacked the other one, the original pact of alliance was never mentioned, as being in bad taste if you did).

The Katyn massacre, in particular, made a deep scar in the Polish psyche. Perhaps it was due because Russia invaded the country when it was trying to fight off the German invasion, perhaps because the subsequent occupation by the Communists tried to convince the Poles that the Russians were their friends, perhaps because the Russians refused to acknowledge what everyone knew. Who knows.

Another thing that makes one sick is that the Poles behaved with honor towards the conquerors, not realizing at the time what vicious monsters they were dealing with. Example: (a) the professors naively show up at the university, summoned by the SS officer, only to be brutally rounded up and sent to Sachsenhausen (b) the Polish officers are initially loosely guarded, which means that many could have easily escaped, but did not do so and therefore were subsequently butchered by the Communists. The ending of the film is brutal to watch, but it needs to be watched

Unfortunately, to people who are unacquainted with the history, as was the case with my wife, events seem to jump and are a bit disorienting. Had the director simply inserted at the right time in the film what is going on historically, e.g., the pact of alliance between Russia and Germany, the subsequent invasion of Russia by Germany, the occupation of Poland by Russia, etc., the movie would have flowed smoothly.

Hail, Caesar!

The first time I saw it, this film left me a bit befuddled. It took me a second time of seeing the film to truly appreciate it. Part of my initial confusion is that there were so many subplots going through the movie.

Anyway. The title of the movie is the title of the movie being filmed in the movie, sometime in the 1950s. Got that? The main star gets kidnapped held for ransom from the studio. However, the main character is Eddie Mannix, one of the head honchos of the studio and he is primarily a “fixer.” He is presented with one problem after the other and he fixes the problems. Then, he is presented with the kidnapping. The kidnapping, by the way, was carried out by Hollywood communists, who are presented as a pack of intellectual buffoons spouting Marxist jargon. Mannix at the same time is being sought after to quit his job and go work for Lockheed, but he cannot make up his mind. At one point, one of the Hollywood communists gets picked up by a Soviet sub and is presumably taken to the Iron Curtain (in actual life, one of the Hollywood 10 communists did disappear and surfaced in East Germany). There are a lot of in-jokes regarding Hollywood of the ’50s, some of which, frankly, went over my head.

Pawn Sacrifice

When I was in my early 20s, I was touring Europe and the talk everywhere by Europeans was the intense chess confrontation between Fisher and the Russians in Iceland, exemplified by Spassky. Everyone was chuckling over Fisher’s antics and Spassky’s apparent befuddlement at Bobby’s behavior, thinking that the latter was messing with the Russian’s head. They jokingly referred to Fisher as being a crazy guy and were rooting for him. What nobody knew at the time, except for a handful of individuals was that Fisher was really crazy, that his antics and demands were not psychological warfare. This secret came to light many years thereafter.

The Soviets’ philosophy was that if they excelled at chess and at the Olympics, even through cheating, then it proved that Marxist totalitarianism was superior to a Western decadent democracy, so the state-funded chess players (and athletes) and gave them special treatment, unlike the Western countries. This fact is emphasized in the film.

Unfortunately, although Liev Schreiber does a convincing and likeable Spassky, the film does not show that he was a pretty decent guy, far from the usual mindless apparatchik. At a chess tournament against the Czechoslovakian players shortly after the Soviet invasion of their country, he shook their hands even though they wore black armbands as a sign of mourning, something that the Soviet authorities got angry about. Also not shown was that after Spassky lost the tournament in Iceland and returned home, he was hassled at the Moscow airport.

Continue reading →