RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-tragedy-of-communist-china/90852/

Communist China’s 70th anniversary, with its spectacle of violence against demonstrators for democracy in Hong Kong, is a moment to mark a profound truth: There is no difference between political liberty and economic liberty. They cannot be separated, nor can one be put before the other. It turns out that economic liberty and political liberty are the same thing — warp and woof of the fabric of freedom.

This became evident in Asia in the 1970s, when our defeat in Vietnam ushered in an era in which the so-called non-aligned nations began to assert themselves. Their conceit was that communism and capitalism were both bad. So non-aligned countries set up authoritarian regimes pursuing Western style development by focusing on business. They delayed political freedom until, in theory, they could afford it.

That theory, though, was upended in those Asian lands where democracy managed to emerge — Japan, Free Korea, and the Free Chinese Republic on Taiwan. It wasn’t easy; real democracy almost got defeated in, say, South Korea and took some time to emerge in, say, Taiwan. Eventually, though, the countries that chose multiparty democracy, freedom of religion, and the rule of law emerged as winners.

This was always recognized in America — and not just by Republicans. One of the clearest expressions of it was given by President Carter. That was in May 1977, when he spoke at Notre Dame. Said the 39th President: “The great democracies are not free because we are strong and prosperous. I believe we are strong and influential and prosperous because we are free.”

By then, though, that truth was already being betrayed. That started in the United Nations. Free China was one of its founders and — with America, Russia, Britain, and Free France — a permanent member of the Security Council, with full veto powers. Yet on a motion of one of the world’s worst tyrannies, Albania, the UN in 1971 gave China’s seat to the communist camarilla.

Nixon’s trip to Peking followed. Then President Carter, at Free China’s expense, and with Congress providing the hechsher, formally recognized the communist regime. This was challenged in the Supreme Court by Senator Goldwater. The justices took the case, but refused to hear arguments, and ordered a lower court to dismiss Goldwater’s claim as non-justiciable.

UNITED KINGDOM

A rapist migrant who tied his victim up with a phone cable after forcing his way into a flat has been convicted of rape; Temesgen Desta, 32, grabbed his victim by the throat to stop her screaming for help and hit her causing her to fall, in Birmingham city centre, West Midlands; also wanted for attempted sexual assault of a 54-year-old woman at Crosby beach, Merseyside, the previous afternoon; both women who were unknown to Desta.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-phone-cable-birmingham-liverpool-sex-attacks-temesgen-desta-a9124516.html

Two men in their 20’s in critical condition after shooting in Ilford, east London; No arrests have been made and a crime scene remains in place.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/28/two-men-in-critical-condition-after-east-london-shooting

A gang member who stabbed his rival in an unprovoked attack in broad daylight in Luton, Bedfordshire, has been jailed; gang member ran up to his rival’s car at a set of traffic lights brandishing a knife; repeatedly stabbed him through the open passenger window

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/luton-stabbing-gang-violence-dashcam-video-police-tyriq-richards-tindle-a9124226.html

Police officer rushed to hospital after being injured in hit and run attack in Coventry, West Midlands; officer was attempting to stop a car; driver sped off after hitting officer

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1182671/Coventry-Police-officer-hit-and-run-injured-west-midlands-police-appeal

Man suffers serious burns after being soaked in flammable liquid and set alight in Skelmersdale, Lancashire; the man is in hospital in a critical but stable condition after suffering serious burns at his home; Officers have launched an attempted murder inquiry

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/26/lancashire-man-set-on-fire-on-doorstep-in-dreadful-targeted-attack

Hillingdon, west London, stabbing: Man brutally knifed to death on platform of London tube station by a group of young men

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1182196/hillingdon-stabbing-london-knife-crime-london-underground-tube-metropolitan-line

A car was deliberately driven into pedestrians in north London, injuring one; the driver deliberately mounted the pavement after an argument earlier in the day, and hit “a number” of pedestrians; It took place outside Highbury and Islington Underground station.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/highbury-islington-station-car-crash-met-police-hit-run-a9117196.html

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) could and should have extradited a PAEDOPHILE music teacher suspected of grooming and sexually abusing a string of girls at a school in Manchester; was first investigated in 1990 after abuse allegations but case was dropped due to supposed lack of evidence

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/30/cps-could-and-should-have-extradited-paedophile-music-teacher

Illegal skin lightening creams found on sale in England and Wales; Criminals exploiting boom in market, with products ‘acting like paint stripper’; skin-whitening cream market is predicted to almost double in the next 10 years; the highly toxic creams could increase the risk of cancer.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/28/illegal-skin-lightening-creams-on-sale-england-wales

ISIS Shock: Families of British jihadis plot to smuggle them to UK as Johnson’s Cabinet sink his calls for children to be repatriated; ISIS members have already been smuggled out of camps where British citizens are held

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1184282/isis-news-shamima-begum-terrorism-boris-johnson-priti-patel-conservative-ben-wallace

Jihadi bride Shamima Begum begs to come home saying she was brainwashed about Islam; regrets her past and wants to come back to the UK for a “second chance to start my life over again” after being “brainwashed” before leaving Bethnal Green for the desert; “I came here believing everything that I had been told while knowing little about the truths of my religion.”

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1182885/isis-bride-shamima-begum-return-britain-bethnal-green-schoolgirl-syria

Dover BOMB SCARE: P&O ferry passengers evacuated after suspicious package found; army bomb squad have been ordered in to investigate

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1183786/dover-P-O-ferry-security-suspicious-package-evacuation

UK courts powerless to prevent deportation of girl, 10, at risk of FGM; Fear child may return to Sudan via Bahrain; A family court had ruled that the girl could be subjected to FGM if taken abroad. But Britain’s Home Office challenged the court’s power to prevent her deportation and on Wednesday the court accepted it did not have such powers; About 87% of Sudan’s women aged between 15 and 49 have been cut, and the majority have undergone the severest form, infibulation, according to the World Health Organization.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/25/girl-10-at-risk-of-fgm-faces-deportation-from-britain

Grooming gang members who targeted girls as young as 12 in Manchester park jailed; Two brothers and two cousins jailed after other members of Romanian gang flee UK; the men met victims in a park and then targeted them in the Levenshulme area and using social media between 2016 and 2018.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/grooming-gangs-manchester-jailed-rape-romanian-calin-baltatu-levenshulme-a9117391.html

Youth services ‘decimated by 69 per cent’ in less than a decade amid surge in knife crime, figures show; Campaigners warn austerity is pushing more children and young people into street violence; Knife crime has meanwhile surged, with 43,516 offences reported to police last year across England and Wales

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/knife-crime-youth-services-cuts-councils-austerity-ymca-a9118671.html

POLICE in Manchester have responding to reports of a suspicious package at Manchester Airport’s train station, with bomb disposal officers carrying out a controlled explosion after an incident apparently triggered by a naked man running amok.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1181465/Manchester-Airport-latest-bomb-police-lockdown-terror-attack-Manchester-airport-flights

Moorgate, London, tube station evacuated: Police swoop in after ‘suspect package’ spotted

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1180605/moorgate-tube-station-security-alert-suspect-package-travel-delay-london-underground

Inspectors discover poor standards at 28 mental health units; Psychiatrists call for inquiry after report on private units, many occupied by NHS patients

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/25/inspectors-discover-poor-standards-at-28-mental-health-units

PAEDOPHILES, killers and drug dealers were among 12,000 who applied to be carers for the vulnerable and elderly last year. It is unknown how many applicants with criminal pasts might have been hired by bosses desperate for staff.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1181313/care-home-horror-crimes-vulnerable

Prisoners take over wing in disturbance at HMP Long Lartin; Staff retreat from wing after being attacked with pool balls at Worcestershire prison

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/24/prisoners-take-over-wing-in-disturbance-at-hmp-long-lartin

MORE than 60 rapes and killings were carried out by suspects on bail for other crimes last year. They were among 13,456 offences committed by so-called “bail bandits”, according to Ministry of Justice figures.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1181057/Crime-UK-rape-killing-murder-bail

Women’s rights group sues CPS over failure to pursue rape cases; New approach has led to collapse in number of defendants charged, say activists

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/24/womens-rights-group-sues-cps-over-failure-to-pursue-rape-cases

The amount of money stolen by criminals through bank transfer scams has risen by 40% in a year and is running at more than £1m a day, according to official UK data; people were duped into authorising a payment to an account controlled by a criminal; scam is officially known as authorised push payment (APP) fraud and includes cases where criminals hack into email accounts of individuals or companies the individuals have employed, to dupe consumers into sending large sums to criminal accounts.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/sep/26/number-of-bank-transfer-scams-in-uk-rise-by-40-in-a-year

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14936/huawei-china-trojan-horse

A refusal to grant a third waiver to Huawei, the world’s largest telecom networking equipment manufacturer and second-largest smartphone maker, would be the right move for the United States. After all, why should President Trump allow our companies to help Beijing steal the world’s data and remotely control devices connected to the internet?

On Tuesday, China’s Communist Party will celebrate the 70th anniversary of its coming to power. This is not a happy time for the communists, however, as their economy, the primary basis of their legitimacy, is crumbling.

In addition, the thought of licensing technology from Huawei is nothing short of hideous. The Chinese company, founded in 1987, was built on stolen Cisco Systems technology, and from all indications has never stopped stealing. Why should we pay China for tech it criminally took — and is still taking — from us?

Unfortunately, these two companies [ZTE and Huawei] despite Trump’s reprieves, have continued to engage in unacceptable behavior. ZTE has almost certainly violated its settlement agreement with the U.S, by installing Dell equipment in Venezuela, and Huawei is currently under investigation for additional instances of intellectual property theft. It is, therefore, time to impose “death sentences” on the pair of Chinese giants, in other words, cut both of them off from U.S. technology.

More fundamentally, why should we have any contact with Huawei? Trump’s instincts are to cut off all dealings. “We are not going to do business with Huawei,” the president said on August 9, “It’s much simpler not doing any business with Huawei.”

So, let’s not do business with Huawei.

“For China, trade with the United States is viewed as a bonanza to acquire — steal — American technology and bilk our people out of hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Any compromise with Beijing would, in the long-run, be to America’s disadvantage.” — Brandon Weichert, tech expert, publisher of The Weichert Report.

We did not win the Cold War by enriching the Soviet Union. We should not try to enrich China now.

Rob Strayer, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cyber and International Communications Policy, told reporters in Brussels on September 26 that the Trump administration is unlikely to grant another 90-day blanket waiver for transactions with China’s Huawei Technologies.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14934/turkey-ban-armenian-chess-champion

The tournament that three-time Armenian chess champion, Maria Gevorgyan, was invited to attend — and from which her invitation was subsequently withdrawn — was the 2019 Sivas Buruciye Chess Open, which was held August 19-24.

In a letter of complaint to the Lausanne, Switzerland-based International Chess Federation (FIDE), MP Mkhitar Hayrapetyan… demanded that FIDE take action…. The investigation is still ongoing.

The solution to the persecution of Armenians in Turkey and Azerbaijan lies in the victory of critical thinking and human rights over dogma and political corruption in those countries.

For there to be a chance of this happening, however, Turkey and Azerbaijan should be governed not by dictatorships that spread hate-filled propaganda, but by people who participate in a true democracy with equal human rights for all.

The banning of three-time Armenian chess champion, Maria Gevorgyan, from an international tournament in Turkey — due to pressure by the Azerbaijani delegation — highlights the discrimination and persecution that Armenians continue suffer in Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The tournament that Gevorgyan was invited to attend — and from which her invitation was subsequently withdrawn — was the 2019 Sivas Buruciye Chess Open, which was held August 19-24.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/30/antifa-goons-block-and-harass-elderly-couple-attending-conservative-event-in-canada/

A protest outside of a free speech event at a college in Ontario, Canada turned violent Sunday evening as far left demonstrators blocked and harassed supporters trying to enter the building.

The event at Hamilton’s Mohawk College featured People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier and American political commentator David Rubin.

Masked agitators waved signs that read “White supremacy is terrorism” and “Refugees welcome here,” and chanted  “Nazi scum, off our streets” as attendees tried to enter the building.

According to a Rebel Media reporter on the scene, antifa members blocked the path of the attendees, shoved their middle fingers in their faces and pulled the hats off their heads.

Things turned positively surreal when a group of antifa agitators got in the faces of an elderly couple as they made their way across the street toward the entrance of building.

“Nazi scum, off our streets!” the antifa thugs screeched at the little old lady hunched over a walker. Three masked agitators moved in so close to the couple, they touched the frail woman’s walker. At that point, one of the goons screamed something and pointed an accusatory finger in the old man’s face as he tried to stand up for his wife.

Four protesters were briefly detained after assaulting conservative attendees, but they were quickly released without charges, according to Portland-based journalist Andy Ngo.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/30/american-b

America’s two parties have given up all pretense of pushing any program for the rest of the current president’s term (which still has over 30% of its length to run).

Forget about another round of growth-driving tax cuts, immigration reform, infrastructure, fixing the health care system, a common trade policy. Anything the American people might like to see.

The only objective on one side: impeachment. On the other: simple survival.

In the UK, the political system is similarly paralyzed. The government is seeking to achieve the people’s will on Brexit on reasonable terms — or even any terms at all. But rogue members of the ruling Conservative Party have voted to ensure it can’t leave the European Union without a deal, which means it has lost its negotiating leverage to achieve such a deal. Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to appeal to the people through a new election. But party rebels have scotched that path forward as well.

In Israel, neither of two major alliances won enough seats in this month’s election to cobble together a majority, and voices across the political spectrum are calling for a so-called “unity government.” But one side won’t join a coalition that includes Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces indictment on corruption charges. The prime minister’s party won’t form a government without him. A potential kingmaker (who forced the second election in a year) says he won’t sit with the prime minister’s party, either, unless it deep-sixes its Orthodox Jewish coalition partners, which the bloc refuses to do.

In short, the world’s three most important democracies, all rendered ungovernable.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-foreign-influence-is-on-the-rise-11569885340

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, “the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” Those words have rarely seemed more relevant than now, when both the president and the front-runner for the nomination to challenge him are embroiled in a scandal that began with attempts by Ukrainian figures to manipulate Washington politics and policy.

The Ukrainian firestorm is only the start. America and the world are changing in ways that will make the question of foreign influence in U.S. political life more fateful, and more difficult to police, than ever.

This isn’t about Facebook ads and voting machines. It is not even about more blatant forms of foreign meddling, like the alleged Russian leaks of damaging information stolen from the Democratic National Committee. Serious as these problems are, America’s greatest risk isn’t the vulnerability of its voting machines to foreign hackers or the susceptibility of party apparatchiks to phishing scams. It is the erosion of ethical standards in the American political and business establishments that most exposes the U.S. to the kind of foreign interference against which Washington warned.

This isn’t a partisan problem. Some members of the administration, including the tweeter in chief, have behaved in ways that earlier American presidents would have condemned, but they are hardly alone. The Clinton Foundation was perceived by many of its foreign donors to be a way to influence American politics during the years in which Hillary Clinton was a likely future president. And hardly anyone believes it was Hunter Biden’s experience, sagacity and business acumen that commended him as a candidate for board membership to a beleaguered Ukrainian gas company.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/no-the-president-of-poland-didnt-say-that-jews-cause-anti-semitism/

In late June of 1941, my father’s first cousins Moshe and Dvora fled their house in the tiny town of Kameny Most, about halfway between Slonim and Baranavichy in what is now Belarus. Hitler had launched Operation Barbarossa days before, and their home stood almost on the German-Soviet line that had divided Poland in 1939. Now the Germans had marched into town. The boy and girl, then 15 and 16, reached the woods behind their house before the Germans arrived. Their parents and baby brother fled a minute later, but the Germans already were there. They couldn’t reach the woods and hid in the tall grass. A Polish neighbor pointed them out to the Germans, who shot them on the spot. Moshe and Dvora joined the partisan brigade led by the Bielski brothers, made famous in the film Defiance. Not long afterwards they returned at night, barricaded the neighbor in his house, set it afire and burned him alive. By the grace of God the teenagers survived the war and came to the new State of Israel and started large and flourishing families. I had the merit to arrive at Dvora’s deathbed in 2004 just in time to receive her blessing upon the American branch of her family.

I tell this story to make it clear that my family isn’t soft on Polish anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism is a matter of the most profound importance, and Polish anti-Semitism is something I take personally. That is why it is especially irresponsible to accuse Poles of anti-Semitism falsely, as the Jewish Insider website yesterday accused Polish President Andrzej Duda. According to the website, President Duda told a group of Jewish community leaders assembled at the Polish Consulate in New York that hostile remarks by an Israeli cabinet minister about Polish anti-Semitism “were a ‘humiliation’ and were the reason for an increase in antisemitic attacks against Jews in Poland.” It is wrong to cry wolf under any circumstances, and reckless to cry wolf where real wolves might turn up.

President Duda never said it. I know he never said it because I was at the meeting.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/29/often-centuries-europe-blowing/

Last week I wrote about political uncertainty as the new normal for the economy and financial markets. It seems that there is a growing body of opinion at the Bank of England that agrees.

In a speech, Michael Saunders, an external member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, said that UK interest rates may need to fall further regardless of what happens over Brexit, such is the likely seemingly never-ending uncertainty created by its political fallout.

This runs contrary to the official line, which is that even in the event of a no deal Brexit, interest rates may have to rise to deal with the inflationary consequences of any shock to output capacity.

Very few people believe this is actually what would happen in practice, and now along comes Mr Saunders to say, indeed; the economy is already slowing precipitously, so we may need to cut whatever happens over Brexit.

I’ve given up trying to figure out where we’ll end up on this journey. Almost any prediction is rendered redundant within a few hours by the unfathomable politics of the UK’s predicament.

Last week’s Supreme Court judgement seems to make the chances of a deal, already quite slim, vanishingly improbable.