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Replacing Justice Ginsburg: Politics, Not Precedent By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on September 20th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/replacing-justice-ginsburg-politics-not-precedent/

The timing of Justice Ginsburg’s replacement is strictly a matter of political calculation.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lived an extraordinary American life and leaves it with glowing admiration from even those who disagreed with her. That’s all any of us can hope for.

It is an unseemly but by now commonplace sign of our times that, even though she passed away just as Rosh Hashanah had begun, the politics of a now-vacant Supreme Court seat could not be put on hold for a day, or even a few hours. On the other hand, Justice Ginsburg herself fanned the political flames. In her last days, she dictated a statement, made public after her death, expressing fervent desire that she “not be replaced until a new president is installed.”Since Supreme Court justices usually choose their words with care, we have to assume this is a wish not only that the seat remain unfilled until after January 20, but that a new president be elected in the interim. It is understandable that Democrats are already exploiting the emotional power of a liberal giant’s dying wish. Yet, while we honor Justice Ginsburg’s remarkable life, we owe her no more deference on the timing of her replacement than on the outcome of the November election.

The timing of her replacement, instead, is strictly a matter of political calculation.

On this, I will say what I always find myself saying when a vacancy on the High Court opens: It is ridiculous for leading senators, administration officials, influential partisans, and pundits to enunciate the high-minded principles and precedents that supposedly control the propriety and timing of a nomination.

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Ginsburg’s Wish to Family: ‘I Will Not Be Replaced Until a New President Is Installed’ By Ivan Pentchoukov

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ginsburg-dictated-wish-to-granddaughter-i-will-not-be-replaced-until-a-new-president-is-installed_3505898.html

Days before her death, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dictated a wish to her granddaughter related to the 2020 presidential election.

“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ginsburg told her granddaughter, Clara Spera, according to NPR.

The Supreme Court said in a statement on Sept. 18 that Ginsburg, 87, passed away in the evening surrounded by her family at her home in Washington from complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Ginsburg’s late wish will surely figure prominently in the debate that’s likely to ensue if President Donald Trump goes forward with appointing a new Supreme Court justice before the election on Nov. 3. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said that he would move forward with approving a justice should an opening come up ahead of Election Day.

Ginsburg spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court’s left wing and became something of a rock star to her admirers. Young women especially seemed to embrace her, calling her the “Notorious RBG” on Twitter.

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The ‘Mostly Peaceful’ Lie Gets A Thorough, Well-Earned Debunking

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/18/the-mostly-peaceful-lie-gets-a-thorough-well-earned-debunking/

Both Democratic officials and their sycophantic media acolytes have used the slippery phrase “mostly peaceful” to describe the riots that have torn apart America — so much, in fact, that it’s now a cliche. But new reports show just how big a lie “mostly peaceful” truly is.

Just this month, as a CNN reporter stood in front of a burning car in riot-torn Kenosha, Wisconsin, the network’s chyron at the bottom of the screen said “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.”

Sorry, they were not “mostly peaceful,” or any of the other false euphemisms used to describe the violent anarchy erupting in cities across the country. Clearly, this is another case of journalists caught in a lie by their very own video images.

Many other instances of such journalistic gaslighting have emerged in recent months. For an interesting and comprehensive roundup, read Christine Rosen’s “Mostly Peaceful: The Birth of an Excuse,” originally published online in Commentary magazine.

But not only have we had the sometimes laughable instances of a journalist standing in front of rioting, burning and looting and then describing it as “mostly peaceful” — the equivalent of describing the Titanic’s first voyage as “mostly uneventful” — now we also have data-based studies that show just how violent these “demonstrations” have been.

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‘Infidel’: Prisoner, Believer, Fighter A new thriller about Iran unites the best of both mainstream and faith-based filmmaking. Mark Tapson

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/infidel-unites-best-both-mainstream-and-faith-mark-tapson/

It is increasingly difficult these days for conservatives to enjoy anything from mainstream Hollywood, which has made its contempt for all those white supremacist Trump supporters in the flyover states very clear. Conservative viewers have had enough of movies and TV series that denigrate, ridicule, and demonize their faith and values. They’re done with being bludgeoned by social justice messaging from hypocritical, elitist actors and filmmakers. They’ve canceled their cable TV and their Netflix subscriptions over increasingly vile, nihilistic content. The only entertainment refuge those viewers are left with, however, is bland “faith-based” programming aimed squarely at conservatives, that too often suffers from low budgets, amateurish quality, and heavy-handed messaging of its own.

So when a movie comes along that merges the best of both mainstream and faith-based filmmaking (but doesn’t fit neatly into either category), that unites strong storytelling and a respect for conservative belief and values, and that doesn’t sucker-punch us with a message of moral equivalence, we need to throw our support behind it and spread the word. Infidel, which opens nationwide today, September 18, is one of those rarities.

Executive produced by Dinesh D’Souza’s media company, and written and directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh, whose 2006 ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11 sparked front-page controversy and sent Bill Clinton and his former administration cronies into paroxysms of anger, the R-rated Infidel is a Middle East thriller starring Jim Caviezel as an American prisoner of the Iranian regime, falsely accused of spying for the CIA. His only way out is to sign a confession – and publicly renounce his faith and convert to Islam.

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Iran’s Missile Violations: Where is the International Community? by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16505/iran-missile-violations

“The important point about these missiles is that they are fully equipped with homing. It means they are of the fire-and-forget type. We fire the missile and the data is on the missile itself, it has various navigation systems built in.” — Iran’s Navy chief, Adm. Hossein Khanzadi, Associated Press, June 8, 2020.

“We are open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, come from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” — Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, The New Yorker, December 13, 2016.

“Today, more than ever, there is fertile ground – with the grace of God – for the annihilation, the wiping out, and the collapse of the Zionist regime. In Lebanon alone, over 100,000 missiles are ready to be launched….” — Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Brigadier General Hossein Salami, to Iran’s state-run IRIB TV, July 1, 2016.

Iran’s foreign-based weapons factories give it an advantageous military capability for waging wars or striking other nations through third countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq.

Instead of appeasing the ruling mullahs of Iran, it is incumbent on the international community to act to stop this predatory regime — now.

Not even a word of condemnation has been issued by either the United Nations or the European Union on the Iranian regime’s latest violations and acceleration of its threatening ballistic missile program. Instead, the UN and the EU are still committed to lifting the arms embargo on Tehran and keeping global sanctions removed from the ruling mullahs.

The regime, meanwhile has been focusing on the proliferation of long-range precision-guided ballistic missiles. It recently unveiled several new missiles — the Haj Qasem surface-to-surface ballistic missile and the Abu Mahdi long-range naval cruise missile — as well as several reportedly high-quality jet engines.

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Where Bad Ideas Lead: Netflix’s ‘First They Killed My Father’ Reveals Real Horrors Through the Eyes Of a Little Girl By Bryan Preston

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/culture/bryan-preston/2020/09/18/where-bad-ideas-lead-netflixs-first-they-killed-my-father-reveals-real-horrors-through-the-eyes-of-a-little-girl-n941482

First They Killed My Father tells the story of Luong Ung, a happy five-year-old girl in Phnom Penh. Her father was a high-ranking government official. Her family was Cambodian upper middle class up until April 1975. Then the Khmer Rouge swept the government aside and destroyed all in their path in the name of imposing Marxism with a Cambodian twist — the “Khmer” being the nationalist brand to the “Rouge,” meaning “red” for communism. The clever grafting of racial identity with communism set Cambodia on a terrible path. 

First They Killed My Father debuted three years ago this week, though you’ve probably never heard of it despite the major star who co-wrote and directed it. More about that later. It received overwhelmingly positive reviews but no buzz. It’s currently available on Netflix, which funded it.

It’s a worthy companion to the multiple Oscar-winning The Killing Fields, from 1984, which I recently reviewed. Both films cover the same story but from very different angles. The former captures the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror mostly from an American perspective, though its principal survivor is a Cambodian journalist. This film sees Cambodia’s communist holocaust through the eyes of a little girl caught up in the terrible events. Her bewilderment pulls the viewer right down with her through the jungles and into the mud on the collective farms and paramilitary training camps. 

First They Killed My Father’s perspective brings a stream-of-consciousness that keeps the story moving despite the heavy content and sparse dialogue. There are no expository scenes after the opening sequence, no journalists or generals explaining the story to establish the location or even the time. The audience knows what Luong knows. This forces the viewer to pick up the details and make sense of events as they happen along with her. 

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Iranian ‘Justice:’ 3 Teens Will Have Fingers Cut Off for Stealing By Rick Moran

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/09/18/iranian-justice-3-teens-will-have-fingers-cut-off-for-stealing-n943072

Three teenagers convicted of stealing had their sentences upheld by the Iranian Supreme Court. The court ordered that the sentence be carried out; four fingers from their right hands will be severed, in accordance with Islamic law.

The three young men claim that their confessions were tortured out of them. One of the young men is in very bad health after slitting his wrists earlier this year.

Fox News:

“Article 278 of the Islamic Punishment Law, the four fingers of their right hands will be cut off for four counts of robbery,” IRM noted. “The fingers must be cut off from the bottom, leaving only the palm and the thumb. According to Article 667 of the same law, they were also ordered to return the stolen goods.”

As a strict Islamic Republic, amputation is legal in Iran based on the Sharia law, which enables “amputation of the full length of four fingers of the right hand of the thief in such a manner that the thumb and palm of the hand remain” — although it remains relatively rare, with the death penalty the more common sentence handed down by the courts.

Nonetheless, it is not apparent how many Iranians are levied with judicial amputation each year, as the cases are kept clandestine to avoid heat from human rights advocates and the broader international community.

Iran apologists argued for years that the practice had been “phased out” and that Iran was actually a decent, enlightened country. Barack Obama thought so. He signed a deal that kept Iran from getting the bomb for a long time. At least, that’s what the Iranians told him.

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Sorry, Mr. Biden: The voters did pick who should fill the SCOTUS vacancy By Neil Braithwaite

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

Now go back to the basement.

Commenting on the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Joe Biden said: 

“There is no doubt, let me be clear, that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider.”

Well Mr. Biden, in case you don’t remember, the voters did pick a president in 2016, and the voters picked Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump was inaugurated at noon on Jan. 20, 2017, making him the 45th President of the United States.  

Again, in case you can’t recall Mr. Biden, Section 1 of the 20th Amendment of the U. S. Constitution states that Donald J. Trump’s term as president of the United States does not end until noon on Jan. 20, 2021.

And until that time, President Trump holds all the rights and powers as determined by that same U. S. Constitution.

I’m sure Mr. Biden, since you were a member of the U.S. Senate for many years, and presided over the Senate Judiciary Committee when Judge Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Clinton, and was also vice president for eight years, that you know that “The Appointments Clause” is part of Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, which empowers the president of the United States to nominate and, with the advice and consent (confirmation) of the United States Senate, appoint someone to a vacated seat of the SCOTUS.

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San Francisco State University once against embraces terrorism By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/san_francisco_state_university_once_against_embraces_terrorism.html

San Francisco State University (“SFSU”) has a history of overt leftism and anti-Semitism going back at least to the 1970s, so perhaps it’s merely business as usual that the campus is hosting an online event featuring Leila Khaled. Still, even for S.F. State, Khaled is extreme. She is a violently anti-Semitic, anti-Israel member of the hard left Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group more radical than the PLO. In 1969, she was part of a team that hijacked a TWA flight with 80 people on board and, in 1970, she attempted to hijack another flight while armed with two hand grenades.

Naturally, Khaled is feted on the left. Although she is still affiliated with the PFLP, which the U.S. and the European Union classify as a terrorist organization, in 2017 she spoke to the European Parliament. While there, she said that the Israelis are worse than the Nazis because they haven’t been punished:

“You can’t compare the actions of the Nazis to the actions of the Zionists in Gaza,” she claimed, later adding, “The Nazis were judged in Nuremberg but not a single one of the Zionists has yet been brought to justice.”

SFSU, although a taxpayer-funded institution, is entirely on board with inviting a member of an anti-Semitic terrorist organization to give a speech:

San Francisco State University’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED) is scheduled to host later this month a virtual conversation with a known Palestinian terrorist.

The Sept. 23 event, “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice, & Resistance: A conversation with Leila Khaled,” will take place via Zoom. It will be hosted by SFSU professors Rabab Abdulhadi and Tomomi Kinukawa, the former of whom has a history of anti-Israel activism.

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China Flies Warplanes Near Taiwan as Senior U.S. Diplomat Visits Visit by U.S. Undersecretary of State Keith Krach is latest move to strengthen ties with island Chao Deng and Chun Han Wong

Posted By on September 19th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-flies-warplanes-near-taiwan-as-senior-u-s-diplomat-visits-11600449576

TAIPEI—Beijing flew military aircraft close to Taiwan on a day that a senior American diplomat met with Taiwan’s president as part of a series of recent U.S. moves to improve ties with the self-ruled island.

Undersecretary of State Keith Krach, the highest-ranking State Department official to visit the island since Washington cut formal ties with Taipei four decades ago, expressed U.S. support for deeper cooperation at a dinner Friday evening hosted by President Tsai Ing-wen, her office said.

The Trump administration has pushed to further relationships with Taiwan as tensions grow with Beijing over technology, trade and global influence. The status of the island, which Beijing considers part of Chinese territory, is one of the most sensitive issues between the U.S. and China. Beijing sees high-level U.S. interactions with Taiwanese officials as provocations.

The State Department said earlier this week Mr. Krach’s trip was to attend a memorial service honoring former President Lee Teng-hui, who died in July. Mr. Lee’s legacy of helping Taiwan transition to a multiparty democracy gave the U.S. and Taiwan an opportunity to highlight shared political values around democracy, a point emphasized in statements from both sides.

Hours before the meeting, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it scrambled jet fighters after at least 18 Chinese aircraft crossed the so-called median line in the Taiwan Strait that roughly marks the halfway point between the island and mainland China.