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BOOKS

The Savagery of ISIS By Douglas Murray

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/isis-brutality-nazi-like-cruelty-yazidis/

“They took us to pits on the farm that were supposed to be our graves . . . They threw us down there in shifts. Every fifteen minutes they would lower down about a dozen men . . . and open fire on them. They arranged us into rows, telling us to line up next to each other so it would be easier for them to shoot us. My brother was in the first shift. My other brother was in the second shift. I was in the third. I knew everyone down there with me; they were my neighbours and friends.”

Up to this point, I imagine most readers will assume that the above passage is a quotation from a survivor of the Nazi atrocities. Only the end of this passage identifies that it is a more recent testimony that we are hearing.

“After they shouted Allahu Akbar, the sound of gunfire rang out, and once they had finished shooting us one by one, I was swimming in a pool of blood. They shot at us again, then a third time. I shut my eyes and prepared to die, as one must.”

“How long did you stay like that?”

“I was bleeding there for almost five hours.”

“Where were you shot?”

“In three different places. Once in my foot and twice in my hand.”

“And did everyone else die?”

“All except for one other man, Idrees, a childhood friend of mine. His feet were injured. I tried to drag him out of the pit with me but I couldn’t because half my body — the left side — was bleeding. I couldn’t lift him with just one hand. Idrees, I said to him, climb up on my bank, get on. But he couldn’t move. He was still alive but I wasn’t able to save him. I struggled to get out of the pit and walked away from the school. As I crossed the farm road, I heard the nonstop rattle of gunfire, and I dropped down onto the ground, which is where I stayed, hidden under the wheat and barley until the sun went down.”

The above is the account of a man called Khalid, a resident of the Nineveh plains who like many thousands of others tried to flee ISIS in August 2014 but was captured by them. His testimony is one of many collected in a remarkable new book by the poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail titled “The Beekeeper of Sinjar.”

WHAT’S DEADLIER? JIHAD OR JIHAD DENIAL? (VIDEO)

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270892/whats-deadlier-jihad-or-jihad-denial-video-daniel-greenfield

To paraphrase, when is Jihad not Jihad, when it prospers. And Jihad is certainly prospering in the multicultural murder cities of the West.

The attacks are often swept under the rug as misunderstandings or mental illness. That’s what happened in Toronto. And Jihad Denial is the subject of Jamie Glazov’s topic on the latest episode of the Glazov Gang.Jihad Denial is all around us and in some ways it’s even deadlier than the terrorist attacks themselves. And part of that phenomenon is also the topic of Jamie’s latest book, Jihadist Psychopath: How He Is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us.

The Switch That Never Happened: How the South Really Went GOP By Dinesh D’Souza

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/29/the-switch-that-never-

This article is adapted from Dinesh D’Souza’s new book Death of a Nation, out July 31 from St. Martin’s Press. His movie of the same title opens nationwide on Friday, August 3.

An interesting phenomenon in politics is the flip flop. What would cause a politician who takes a stand on an issue to reverse himself and take precisely the opposite stand on the same issue? Even more interesting is the about face or volte face. The volte face goes beyond the flip flop because it represents a total and usually lasting shift of course, as when Reagan abandoned the Democratic Party and became a Republican.

More interesting even than the volte face is when a whole group or party makes this shift. Perhaps the most dramatic example in our lifetime is when the Soviet Communist Party in 1991 abolished itself. It’s one thing for an individual to undergo a wrenching conversion but what would cause a whole party to reverse itself in that way? Could it be a transformation of the collective conscience, or a new perception of group interests, or what?

Our exploration of the subject is deepened by a new possibility introduced by Winston Churchill, who in one of his essays takes up the subject of consistency in politics. Himself accused on more than one occasion of reversing himself and taking inconsistent positions on issues, Churchill defends himself by invoking the apparent volte face, the change of tactics that is not a change of goals or values.

Churchill writes, “A statesman in contact with the moving current of events and anxious to keep the ship on an even keel and steer a steady course may lean all his weight now on one side and now on the other. His arguments in each case, when contrasted, can be shown to be not only very different in character but contradictory in spirit and opposite in direction. Yet his object will throughout have remained the same . . . We cannot call this inconsistency. In fact, it can be claimed to be the truest consistency. The only way a man can remain consistent amid changing circumstances is to change with them while preserving the same dominating purpose.”

Springtime for Snowflakes A professor’s memoir of the closing of the American mind. Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270828/springtime-snowflakes-mark-tapson

In the fall of 2016, New York University professor Michael Rectenwald created an anonymous Twitter account to critique the alarming spread across campuses of an “anti-education and anti-intellectual” social justice ideology. Before long he was outed as the man behind the controversial @antipcnyuprof account, and despite being a leftist himself, became the target of shunning and harassment from his colleagues and the NYU administration. But instead of caving in to the campus totalitarians as so many academics do, Rectenwald declared himself done with the Left, and though still not a conservative, began appearing often in right-wing media to defend free speech and academic freedom, and to expose the “bilious animosity and unrestrained cruelty” he endured from his former compatriots.

I previously interviewed Prof. Rectenwald for FrontPage Mag here back in January. At the close of that interview he mentioned a book he was working on about the experience, and it is now available in paperback and on Kindle: Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and its Postmodern Parentage. Short but dense with insights about postmodern theory, social justice ideology, and academic conformity, the book is a must-read for understanding the intellectual collapse of the American university under the weight of a totalitarian ideology.

Rectenwald begins the book by relating his experience of “becoming deplorable” and being pushed toward political apostasy, which forced him to reexamine the herd with which he had formerly run. “I didn’t leave the left,” he writes. “The left left me” – echoing Ronald Reagan’s famous declaration, “I didn’t leave the Democratic party. The Democratic Party left me.” “In trying to correct me,” Rectenwald writes about his fellow academics, “they did indeed correct me – but not as they’d hoped. They corrected my vision by forcibly dislodging the scales of their ideology from my eyes.” He realized that the “institutions of North American higher education have taken a hairpin turn, and a wrong turn at that. They have surrendered moral and political authority to some of the most virulent, self-righteous, and authoritarian activists among the contemporary left.”

Wolfgang Kasper The Atavistic Assault on Liberalism

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/theatavistic-assault-liberalism/

Mario Vargas Llosa’s journey from Castro groupie to steel-eyed critic of both Leftism and populism gives the observations and commentary of his latest book the authority of a long life both lived and examined. To describe it as a joy of the first order would be to engage in understatement.

La llamada de la tribu
by Mario Vargas Llosa
Alfaguara, 2018, 313 pages, €18.90
________________________

When a grandee of literature and liberal philosophy, such as Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa (left), publishes the account of his intellectual odyssey, this is a literary event. The new book was a sensation in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a learned, critical record of the seven liberal authors who converted him—an idealistic communist in his youth—to full-blooded liberalism. The account comes from the pen of a master storyteller, who became a political animal in the same places and during the same decades as I did. This made the book a great delight for me. For now, the book is only available in Spanish, but an English translation seems not far off.

In a recent interview with Mexico’s cultural-political monthly Gatopardo, Vargas Llosa scoffs at his eighty-two years. He is already planning a globe-spanning tour to promote his new book.

JAMIE GLAZOV’S NEW BOOK: “JIHADIST PSYCHOPATH”

http://jamieglazov.com/2018/07/26/jamie-glazovs-new-book-jihadist-psychopath/

Jihadist Psychopath: How He Is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us.

Jihadist Psychopath offers an original and ground-breaking perspective on the terror war. Like no other work, it unveils the world of psychopathy and reveals, step by step, how Islamic Supremacists are duplicating the sinister methodology of psychopaths who routinely charm, seduce, capture, and devour their prey.

Jihadist Psychopath unveils how every element of the formula by which the psychopath subjugates his victim is used by the Islamic Supremacist to ensnare and subjugate non-Muslims. And in the same way that the victim of the psychopath is complicit in his own destruction, so too Western civilization is now embracing and enabling its own conquest and consumption.

President Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton says about Jihadist Psychopath:

Hard as it is to believe, many in the West simply will not take the time and trouble to understand the threat posed by radical Islamicist terrorism. James Burnham once wrote of a similar problem with international Communism in his masterful Suicide of the West. Now, Jamie Glazov has written this century’s counterpart to Burnham’s classic work and will doubtless upset those determined not to analyze for themselves the nature of the underlying phenomenon.

With a Foreword written by Michael Ledeen, glowing advance praise also comes from Dennis Prager, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Steve Emerson and many other titans and scholars in the international arena. (See Amazon page for many of the blurbs).

Dennis Prager affirms that Jihadist Psychopath is “…one of the most important books of the present time.”

And that’s why you have to pre-order a copy now. Order Jihadist Psychopath Today!

Why Does Facebook Think I’m ‘Political’? The robots won’t let me advertise my book on nationalism.By Yoram Hazony

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-does-facebook-think-im-political-1532559704

The robots at Facebook always urge me to “boost my post.” This sounds kinky, but it’s Zuckerspeak for buying advertising. I’ve avoided these offers because I’m no computer genius. For me, high-tech is writing down my password somewhere.

But then I kept seeing ads for Yossi Klein Halevi’s new book, “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.” I have a book coming out called “The Virtue of Nationalism.” Like a knucklehead, I figured if Yossi could boost his post, so could I.

I pressed “Boost Post.” Soon thousands of people were seeing my ad, and I was psychotically checking the click count every four minutes. “Your ad is doing better than most promotions on Facebook,” the robots flattered me. I was like Fast Eddie playing big-time pool. How could I lose?

It lasted two weeks. Then a red announcement appeared: “Your ad was not approved because your Page has not been authorized to run ads with political content.” My boost was now stamped with a verdict in red letters: “Rejected.”

I found a window for submitting appeals. “My book is concerned with the historical development of the nation-state and the case for preferring it to imperialism,” I groveled. I offered to send the robots a copy so they could see for themselves.

Facebook’s sentient programs don’t wear dark glasses or have menacing names like Agent Smith. A response came from “Veronica”: “The text and/or imagery you’re using qualifies as political, based on the definition we’re using for enforcement,” it said. “You must authorize your page to run political ads.”

Gregg Jarrett: Comey and Strzok — Two key players in the scheme to clear Clinton and frame Trump Gregg Jarrett

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/23/gregg-jarrett-comey-and-strzok-two-key-players-in-scheme-to-clear-clinton-and-frame-trump.html

In one of the more stunning revelations contained in the report compiled by the Justice Department’s watchdog, former FBI Director James Comey claimed he doesn’t remember the moment he decided – and put down in writing — that Hillary Clinton had committed crimes.

We know that on or about May 2, 2016, Comey composed a statement summarizing Clinton’s mishandling of classified documents, concluding that she was “grossly negligent.” Those pivotal words have a distinct legal meaning, and are drawn directly from a federal statute, 18 U.S.C. 793(f), which makes it a felony to handle classified documents in a “grossly negligent” manner.

Comey used the exact phrase not once, but twice.

Based on Comey’s finding, Clinton should have faced a multiple-count criminal indictment, since the FBI discovered that she had stored 110 classified emails on her unauthorized, private computer server. Other people had been prosecuted for similar conduct that jeopardized national security in violation of the law. Yet, Comey – despite characterizing Clinton’s actions with the clear language denoting violation of the law – saw to it that no charges were ever brought against Clinton.

Based on Comey’s finding, Clinton should have faced a multiple-count criminal indictment, since the FBI discovered that she had stored 110 classified emails on her unauthorized, private computer server.

Daryl McCann: Big Brother’s Loyalty

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/big-brothers-loyalty/

In his rushed-to-press book, ‘A Higher Loyalty’, James Comey reveals himself as a congenital lawyer with a special talent for obfuscation and self-exoneration. That such a creature rose so high lends enormous credence to Donald Trump’s grievances against the Deep State.

It’s too easy to mock the title of ex-FBI Director James Comey’s memoir A Higher Loyalty. Higher loyalty to whom? Jim Comey? Comey himself anticipates the charge by confessing upfront in the Author’s Note that he “can be stubborn, prideful, overconfident, and driven by ego”, character flaws he has struggled with his “whole life”. No kidding. A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership might be an exercise in self-righteousness, confesses Comey, but whether that is accurate or not—and our author, unsurprisingly, quickly proceeds to deny it—his enmity towards President Donald Trump happens to be based on something more substantial than Comey’s own bruised ego. Ethics is Comey’s word for it. I am, perhaps surprisingly, inclined to agree; but with the proviso that ideology rather than ethics be designated as James Comey’s moral compass.

There is something big lurking in the depths of Comey’s memoir and to uncover it we must address three key issues: (a) the exoneration of Hillary Clinton; (b) Comey’s boyish admiration for Barack Obama; and (c) the brutal denigration of Donald Trump. In the first instance, the former FBI director’s exoneration of Hillary Clinton in A Higher Loyalty is a tricky business, as was his pronouncement in July 5, 2016, that Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in the use of a private server during her tenure as Secretary of State but that, in his judgment, “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against her for mishandling classified information, either “intentionally or in a grossly negligent way”. We now know the FBI “sensitive matters team” never had any intention of recommending charges against Candidate Clinton in 2016 and that, as Candidate Trump would say, “the fix was already in”.

ISIS BEGINS, a Novel of the Iraq War Ken Timmerman’s new novel highlights the urgency of saving persecuted Christians. Jamie Glazov

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270741/isis-begins-novel-iraq-war-jamie-glazov

Frontpage’s guest today is Ken Timmerman, author of several New York Times best-sellers and a frequent contributor to Frontpage. His new book is ISIS BEGINS, a novel of the Iraq War.

FP: Ken Timmerman, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Timmerman: Thanks for having me, Jamie. It’s always a pleasure.

FP: Let’s begin with a quick glance at some of your books: Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Saddam, Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, and your two books on Benghazi, Dark Forces, and Deception.

So here’s the first question: what compels an investigative reporter to write a novel, and especially one about persecuted Christians?

Timmerman: Great question, Jamie. Thank you.

I started going on reporting and mission trips to northern Iraq in 2007, and gathered so much material that I thought I should write a book about what my sources were calling the coming “religiocide” of Iraqi Christians. Already then, in 2007, 2008, Christians were leaving Iraq in huge numbers. Jihadi Muslim groups were bombing their churches, murdering their bishops. They kidnapped ordinary Christians, holding them for ransom, and then murdered them when their families couldn’t produce the exorbitant payments they demanded. I was thinking to call such a book, “Blood of the Iraqi Martyrs.” But my agent at the time couldn’t get a single major publisher interested. Not one.

The publishing world just didn’t want to hear about Christian persecution. Even before Obama, when the subject literally became taboo, the notion that Christians were being murdered by Muslims was not popular.

So during one of these trips, Father Keith Roderick, an Anglican priest who then worked for Christian Solidarity International, a terrific group, by the way, convinced me that I should recast this body of material as a novel.

Why? So that ordinary Americans could feel and smell and taste what it is like to be a persecuted Christian, chased by Muslims intent on murder. For that is the reality of Iraq – and of so many other places around the world, such as Nigeria, Sudan, or Iran. He felt a novel would a more emotional impact on readers than a non-fiction book would.

FP: And you’re not new to writing novels, right?

Timmerman: Right, I am not. I have had two novels published. I confess: I actually started my career writing fiction, and studied under avante-garde novelist John Hawkes at the Brown University graduate writing seminar in the early 1970s and went to Paris in 1975 with a novel in my suitcase. I eventually started an expat literary magazine, Paris Voices, that was the center of a whole expat literary scene. But that’s a whole other story.