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RACE IN AMERICA: SYDNEY WILLIAMS

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Bigotry in any form is ugly. Certainly, racism exists in individuals, but does institutionalized racism exist in the United States? This essay owes its origin to an interview with Kay Coles James, conducted by Nicole Ault in last weekend’s edition of the Wall Street Journal. The title was “On Being Black and Conservative.” Ms. Coles was in the second class to integrate her junior high school in Richmond, Virginia in 1961. Today, she is president of the Heritage Foundation. Could that have happened in a systemically racist country?

The concept of systemic racism stems from Critical Race Theory (CRT), which states that race, “instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is a socially constructed concept that is used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of color.”[1]  Systemic racism is defined by Wikipedia as “the formalization of a set of institutional, historical, cultural and interpersonal practices within a society that more often than not puts one social or ethnic group in a better position to succeed, and at the same time disadvantages other groups in a consistent and constant manner, that disparities develop between the groups over a period of time.”

But does systemic racism exist in the U.S.? Certainly, there are individual racists, as well as anti-Semites, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes, anti-Catholics and those infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. To define the United States as systemically racist, however, connotes a conspiracy that does not appear to exist. In 1948 President Tuman signed an executive order committing the government to integrate its segregated military. The term “affirmative action,” affecting the hiring practices of government contractors, was first used in Executive Order No. 10925, issued by President Kennedy on March 6, 1961. Jim Crow laws (state and local laws enacted to maintain racial segregation) were abolished with the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned segregation in public places and prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices, which had been in effect in many southern states since the end of the Civil War.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Chris Wray is Right: Antifa Is an Ideological Threat to the United States By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/antifa-ideological-threat-to-united-states/

His assessment marks a dramatic improvement in the FBI’s position on the very real and present threat of ideologically driven violence.

On Thursday, Jim Geraghty had a characteristically insightful Corner post discussing FBI director Christopher Wray’s recent characterization of Antifa on Capitol Hill. Jim observes that the director’s testimony will be (indeed, is being) distorted in the debate halls, congressional chambers, and media commentary because, well, that’s what we do.

The rap on Wray is that he resists framing Antifa as an “organization,” thinking it more accurate to depict it as a “movement” or an “ideology.” The problem is not just that he is being maligned for what was a more nuanced and accurate description than the commentary indicates. Beyond that, the commentary is missing entirely that his assessment marks a dramatic improvement in the FBI’s position on ideologically driven violence, which has been the most immediate threat faced by the United States for a generation. If the government is applying to international terrorism — i.e., jihadist terrorism — the same thinking that Wray described as the bureau’s approach to Antifa’s domestic terrorism, that is a significant security enhancement.

Wray is not denying that Antifa is infecting and driving violent anti-American anarchists. Those anarchists, he indicated, include collections that range from ad hoc groups of individuals who self-identify as Antifa to more regimented “nodes” that are “coalescing regionally.”

Does that sound familiar? It should. On a global stage, it mirrors in many ways the Muslim Brotherhood. Not a precise reflection, but it is similar (and bear in mind that these movements are in very different stages of their historical development).

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

American Jews should reject Joe Biden   By Judah Waxelbaum

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

Joe Biden has spent nearly 50 years on the political stage. In that time, he has repeatedly proven that he is no ally to Israel. The Biden platform is a delicate balance of establishment Democratic talk points when it comes to Israel. It is rare you get a candidate with this extensive of a political record; it would be criminal to ignore it. American voters must look past the campaign and focus on Biden’s time in the Senate and as vice president.

 In 1982, prime minister Menachem Begin testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Then-senator Biden told Begin that US aid to Israel could be cut off if actions in the West Bank did not cease.
 

Begin responded,

 “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”
 

Biden slammed on the dais, clearly angry with what Begin was saying. Begin continued,

 “This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three-thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Social Justice, Tikkun Olam and the Democrat Party Politics Diane Bederman

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

https://dianebederman.com/social-justice-tikkun-olam-and-the-democrat-party/

Judaism teaches that social justice includes leaving grain and produce during the harvest for the poor to glean in order to provide all people the dignity of work. A hand up and not a perpetual hand out.

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the corner of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.  You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.” (Leviticus 19:9-11)

Our Jewish ethic teaches us that we have moral agency; free will; that we are the subject of our destiny and not the object of our fate. We are not the victims of circumstance because we choose our path, no matter the road blocks put in our way.

Yet, I watch and listen as Jewish people support a party that places multiple road blocks in front of those in most need of uplifting by promoting a welfare state: free stuff; free education, free health care, subsidized housing. It all sounds lovely, but for those whose hand is always out, there is no dignity; there is no moral agency.  I agree there is no dignity in homelessness or hunger but socialism is not the answer. We know this from history watching what happened in Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela, rich beyond belief, from oil, whose people are now unable to buy toilet paper. Socialism is evil. It is debilitating. It undermines dignity turning citizens into generational victims.

Dear Jews, listen to those less fortunate. Listen to the Latinos and Hispanics whose families fled socialist countries to come to America for the freedom to rise up and to fall down, knowing you could rise up again. Listen to them as they warn against socialism as preached by Bernie Sanders and shared by AOC.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

EU Still Siding with the “World’s Worst Human Rights Abuser” by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16539/eu-iran-human-rights-abuse

“One day, I heard screams, shouting, and pleas for help in the police department…. I witnessed two officers who were dressed in unofficial uniform cursing and hitting Navid with batons and metal pipes with no mercy. They would tell him: ‘the truth is whatever we say, will you write what we are saying or not?’ Navid was… begging: ‘please, stop, please don’t hit me, I didn’t do anything.’ He covered his head with his arms. And one of the officers, whose name I later learned was Abbasi, hit Navid with such strength that Navid let out a gut-wrenching scream and fell unconscious”. — Witness to the torture of Iran’s wrestling champion, Navid Afkari, who was reportedly tortured into a false confession, then hanged.

Iran’s leaders most likely wanted to make an example of the highly respected wrestler, to impose fear in society, and send a strong message to the people that anyone who dares to protest can face severe consequences.

Did they hear about the four teenagers who will have their fingers amputated as a punishment for stealing, also, according to them, after being tortured until they “confessed”?

The European Union, in empowering a regime that is torturing and executing protesters and political prisoners, is making itself complicit in these crimes against humanity. Instead, the EU needs immediately to join the US in putting pressure on the mullahs and holding them accountable.

The European Union is openly siding with the ruling mullahs of Iran and attempting to scuttle US efforts to pressure the rogue regime to stop. Britain, France and Germany, on September 18, told the UN Security Council that the EU is strongly committed to ensuring the continued lifting of sanctions against the Iranian government. The three European powers added that, as far as they were concerned, even if the United States reimposes all sanctions, their UN sanctions relief for Iran would continue beyond September 20.

The EU has also been helping Iranian leaders to evade US sanctions through a payment mechanism labeled as INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), which is designed to permit European firms and corporations to continue doing business with the Iranian government in spite of US economic sanctions against Tehran.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Iran: Can the U.S. Make Peace with the Mullahs? by Peter Huessy

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16582/iran-can-the-us-make-peace-with-the-mullahs

With regard to the JCPOA itself, Iran’s serious and continuing violations of the nuclear enrichment terms of the existing agreement reflect the true intentions of the mullahs, and clearly indicate that a new nuclear deal could not be implemented with any confidence: it would also be violated by Iran. Secretary Pompeo, in a statement posted on the Department of State’s website, noted that Iran has shown no willingness to live in peace.

Like other criminal cartels, Iran has operational arms, including the IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas, to do its dirty work. In 2014-15, Iran’s terror proxy, Hezbollah, financed its terrorism through smuggling contraband cigarettes in the United States, and working with Venezuelan drug cartels to smuggle drugs and traffic in women and children. Revealingly, a nearly-completed law enforcement effort to take down Hezbollah’s cigarette smuggling ring was shut down by the Obama administration just before the 2015 JCPOA was concluded.

If anyone thinks that diplomacy can resolve such threats, one need not do any more than remember the diplomatic success Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had in preventing Nazi Germany from attacking Poland.

On Saturday, September 19, after months of futile diplomatic efforts to extend the UN ban on Iran’s purchase of advanced weapons, the Trump administration implemented “snap back” sanctions as set forth in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That action was taken, said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, because “The Iranians are largely ignoring the most important components of the [nuclear deal] with respect to nuclear enrichment.”

BOOKS, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Anthony J. Sadar :Environmental perspective meets environmental apocalypse

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/10/environmental_perspective_meets_environmental_apocalypse_.html

On the first day of teaching college-level Environmental Science, I write on the board in large letters “PERSPECTIVE.”  This attention grabber focuses students on what they need to learn to get a more complete understanding of environmental issues.  They need to discover not just facts and figures but the sense of those facts and figures from environmental practitioners, both within and outside the ivory towers. 

Perspective is what Michael Shellenberger’s book. Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (Harper, June 2020), provides at a time when perspective is desperately needed.  In addition to being a Time magazine “Hero of the Environment,” and “the winner of the 2008 Green Book Award from the Stevens Institute of Technology’s Center for Science Writings,” Mr. Shellenberger is “an invited expert reviewer of the next Assessment Report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” 

Apoclypse Never went to #1 in three categories this past weekend on Amazon:  Climatology, Environmental Policy, and Human Geography (Books).  So, people are taking notice of this author’s real-world perspective, and well they should.  I provided each of my two college summer interns with copies of Apocalypse Never as a gift when they completed their internships.  I encouraged the students to consider the book’s concepts along with what they learned from their environmental science and engineering training. 

Individual chapters address popular notions of impending worldwide woes that have been instilled in students and the public alike since at least the 1960s.  Catastrophic climate change, overpopulation, energy crisis, whaling, and plastics are among the pertinent topics carefully reviewed and evaluated.  Mr. Shellenberger relies primarily on historic and academic sources, although he includes interviews with recognized subject-matter experts and those impacted by untoward ecological and economic decisions. 

Apocalypse Never doesn’t miss the unmistakable comparison of modern environmentalism with religious practice, noting that it “is the dominant secular religion of the educated, upper-middle-class elite in most developed and many developing nations.  It provides a new story about our collective and individual purpose.  It designates good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains.  And it does so in the language of science, which provides it with legitimacy.” 

ELECTIONS, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Biden’s Energy Plan: Sacrificing Goats to the Sun Gods By Norman Rogers

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/10/bidens_energy_plan_sacrificing_goats_to_the_sun_gods.html

A number of documents  have been published by the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party: Biden’s energy plan, the Biden-Saunders unity manifesto and the party platform.  A lot of the goals in these documents are generalities, promising everything to everyone, especially to groups that vote Democratic.  One concrete goal is carbon-free electricity generation by 2035.  This is a pointless goal on several fronts.  Reducing U.S. CO2 emissions is a pointless exercise due to the fact that declining U.S. emissions are dwarfed by rapidly increasing emissions in China and India.  U.S. emissions are declining due to increased use of natural gas, a low-carbon source of energy.  The claim that CO2 will create an apocalyptic disaster is overwrought, without sound scientific basis.  The Biden campaign ignores the fantastic benefits for agriculture of adding more CO2 to the atmosphere.  The Biden campaign accepts as fact popular fake claims that not even the most extreme climate scientists would dare to advocate — that CO2 will create forest fires, floods, and sea level rise.

Wind and solar cannot be the instrument to achieve the (unnecessary) goal of 100% zero carbon electricity by 2035.  Wind and solar are erratic and unpredictable sources of electricity.  As long as wind and solar supply less than about 25% of the electricity in a grid, the grid can handle the erratic energy supply by throttling backup plants, usually natural gas plants, up and down to compensate for the ups and downs of wind or solar.  When wind and solar go past the approximate 25% threshold, spells of excess wind and solar power appear.  The problem is that wind and solar power are peaky, with peaks 3 to 5 times the average power.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Winding Constitutional Path From Trump to Pence to Pompeo The president is sick, so here’s a review of the laws governing succession. By John Yoo

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-winding-constitutional-path-from-trump-to-pence-to-pompeo-11601677891?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

What if President Trump becomes seriously ill and unable to do his job? Under the 25th Amendment, the president can report to Congress that “he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Vice President Mike Pence would become acting president until Mr. Trump sends a second written declaration that he can perform his duties again.

But suppose he’s unable or unwilling to issue the declaration. The 25th Amendment provides for that too. If the vice president and a majority of “the principal officers of the executive branch”—defined by statute to include the heads of the 15 major executive departments—declare in writing that the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” Mr. Pence becomes acting president “immediately.”

Mr. Trump’s opponents have often mused about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office for behavior they regard as erratic. The idea reflects a misunderstanding of how the amendment works. Even in the unlikely event that Mr. Pence and the cabinet backed such a move, the president could challenge it. The disagreement would be resolved in the president’s favor unless two-thirds of both houses of Congress overrode him—and even then, his removal would be temporary. The 25th Amendment deals with cases of genuine debility, such as might arise if the president became seriously ill.

Mr. Pence has tested negative for the coronavirus. But suppose that changes and both he and Mr. Trump are too sick to perform the presidency’s duties. Article II of the Constitution states that in “the case of removal, death, resignation or inability” of both the president and vice president, Congress has the authority to declare “what officer shall then act as president” until the disability ends or a new president is elected. The term “officer” poses a problem for the current law.

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Staying positive The left is in a paroxysm of delight over the President’s diagnosis Roger Kimball

Posted By on October 3rd, 2020

https://spectator.us/testing-positive-coronavirus-donald-trump/

Almost everyone, no matter his political coloration, has been predicting that the presidential election would be close. I was thinking of writing a column in the next few days arguing against this conventional position. I am no Nate Silver, psephologist to the stars, but the more I looked around, the more it seemed to me that President Trump was going to win handsomely. I was thinking he would take all the states he took last time, with the possible exception of Wisconsin (10 electoral votes). Further, it seemed to me that he had a good chance to pick up Nevada (6 votes), Minnesota (10) and New Hampshire (4). I even thought that Colorado (9 votes) and Virginia (13) might be in play.

The President’s announcement earlier today that he and Melania had tested positive for the Chinese flu has made me pause to reconsider that prognostication.

One of the reasons I was so upbeat in my psephological prophecy was the vigor of the President’s campaign. Notwithstanding the restrictions imposed on public gatherings by our latest Chinese import, his team has devised and robust strategy for him to campaign safely and effectively. His rallies are outdoors, usually involve Air Force One as an elegant prop, and the draw large and enthusiastic crowds.

But wait, how can I say that these rallies are safe when the President has just tested positive for COVID? I won’t give you a lecture about the difference between post hoc and propter hoc but will merely observe that we have no idea from where the President was exposed to the virus.

Naturally, the left is having none of. The Los Angeles Times, for example, wheeled into print with an editorial gleefully lambasting the President for his ‘recklessness’ (in fact ‘deadly, foolish recklessness’).

Moreover, we do not know whether he will sicken from the exposure. The vast majority of people who test positive are asymptomatic, many more experience on mild symptoms.