NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Susan Rice Was a Diplomatic Disaster Joe Biden doesn’t need a running mate who has shown such poor judgment. By Bret Stephens

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/opinion/susan-rice-africa.html

In its 2011 World Report, Human Rights Watch noted the following about Ethiopia under the rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi: The ruling party had won parliamentary elections with 99.6 percent of the vote. Supporters of opposition parties endured months of constant intimidation. Journalists and human-rights activists had been forced to leave the country. And hundreds of political prisoners were “in jail and at risk of torture and ill-treatment.”

Meles died the following year. Susan Rice, then the Obama administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, flew to Addis Ababa to deliver a eulogy. 

“Prime Minister Meles was an uncommon leader, a rare visionary, and a true friend to me and many,” she said. While briefly allowing that the two could disagree on issues of democracy and human rights, she showered the deceased strongman with praise. He was, she said, “uncommonly wise,” “brilliant” and “selfless.”

“I suspect we all feel it deeply unfair, to lose such a talented and vital leader so soon, when he still had so much more to give,” she said.

Days later, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was set ablaze by terrorists; four Americans were killed; and Rice became notorious for offering some factually challenged talking points regarding the cause of the attack. That performance likely sank her chances of succeeding Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. But it’s her overall record as a U.S. diplomat in Africa that should be examined more closely as she is among the final few whom Joe Biden is considering as a running mate.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s High Court hits a new low: Ruthie Blum

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/israels-high-court-hits-a-new-low/

That left-wing activists consider the demolition of terrorists’ homes a cruel form of “collective punishment” is par for the course. But judges are not supposed to base their rulings on political bias.

The ruling by Israel’s High Court of Justice against the home demolition of Palestinian terrorist Nizmi Abu Bakr is the latest example of judicial overreach based on political bias. Abu Bakr confessed to and was indicted on charges of murdering 21-year-old Israel Defense Forces’ Staff Sgt. Amit Ben-Yigal on May 12.

Ben-Yigal, a member of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion, was one of the soldiers involved in a raid on the Palestinian Authority-controlled village of Yabad in Samaria to apprehend four suspected terrorists. After completing their mission at around 4:30 a.m. on May 12, the troops began to exit the village on foot.

At this point, approximately one dozen residents of the area began pummeling them with bricks and cinder blocks from surrounding rooftops. Abu Bakr targeted Ben-Yigal, making sure to hit him at an angle from which his protective helmet would be of no use.

The 49-year-old terrorist’s aim at the young Israeli’s head was impeccable. Though Ben-Yigal was administered first aid on the scene, he was pronounced dead on arrival at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.

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He was the first IDF soldier to be killed in action in 2020, and was promoted, posthumously, to the rank of Sgt. First Class. He was killed a mere month before the end of his military service.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Democrats’ abandonment of the Jews By Joan Swirsky

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/swirsky/200810

In 1984, David S. Wyman, a professor of history at Amherst College, published The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945, in which he documented the degree to which leftist icons like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt were presented with irrefutable evidence of Jewish genocide and did nothing to stop the mass murder of six-million Jews in Hitler’s Europe.

Jewish leaders who were given an “audience” with FDR implored him, beseeched him to intervene in this unprecedented annihilation, and showed him graphic evidence of:

Jews being herded into asphyxiating cattle cars on their way to concentration camps,
Jewish infants and children being ripped from the arms of their parents,
Jews clawing at the walls of gas chambers until their last-gasp deaths.

But FDR did nothing! If there is blood on the hands of any politician in the last thousand years, it is on the hands of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And yet, leftist American Jews––to this day––celebrate his presidency.

MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: PAULINE KAEL ON NIXON IN 1972

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

In 1972 Nixon won the election in a landslide despite the hatred of the media and academics and general “liberals’ who preferred the Socialist leanings of George McGovern.

The famous witty film critic  Pauline Kael famously commented:

 ‘I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.’”

I know what she meant….I can feel the silent Trump supporters….rsk

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Cotton to Higher Ed: Loosen Up or Lose Your Money This is a campaign issue that frightens the Left, and with good reason. Republicans should move swiftly. By Mark Bauerlein

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/10/cotton-to-higher-ed-loosen-up-or-lose-your-money/

This is how bad higher education has gotten: Republican Senators who worry about federal overreach and don’t wish to harm large institutions in their own states have decided that colleges and universities have fully abandoned their Ivory Tower mission and can only be repaired from the outside. The remedy is called the “Campus Free Speech Restoration Act,” which was introduced by Tom Cotton. Stanley Kurtz explains the salient elements of the Act here. 

The proposal is simple. “Under CAFSRA,” Kurtz writes, “public colleges and universities that promulgate restrictive speech codes, so-called free-speech zones, and other unconstitutional speech policies will lose their eligibility to receive federal student loans and grants through the Higher Education Act.” Private universities will face lesser scrutiny, required only to disclose their rules for free speech and adhere to them or else face lawsuits.

That’s it: Protect free speech or the federal faucet is shut off. College leaders will have a decision to make. They can maintain illiberal practices such as the sequestered free speech zones (which cabin free speech to postage-stamp areas of campus and have even led the ACLU to protest them) and thereby see federal dollars disappear, or they can dismantle those practices and keep the money coming. They can revise their speech codes to fit the First Amendment and lose no funding, or they can maintain those codes and suffer at the bottom line.

The law has several provisions that Kurtz enumerates regarding complaint procedures and review processes, the role of the U.S. Department of Education, etc. that might slow down its passage. A few Republican legislators may claim discomfort with federal intrusion into state and private entities, although massive federal subsidies to higher education happen all the time and, currently, support these unconstitutional practices. Democrats likely will oppose it for the obvious reason that higher education has become a liberal stronghold and pipeline. The censorious campus has worked very well for the Left. Democrats won’t want to change it.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon Taiwan The only way to prevent Chinese ascendancy and a potential war is to make it clear that we will not accept their bullying. By Anton Lupan

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/10/why-we-cant-afford-to-abandon-taiwan/

In the Munich Conference of September 1938, Great Britain and France threw Czechoslovakia to the wolves. In order to appease Adolf Hitler, the Western democracies forced the Czechs to give up the Sudetenland, a heavily fortified region on the border with Germany. This region contained millions of ethnic Germans which Hitler wanted to incorporate into his empire, and the German dictator claimed this would be his “last territorial demand.”

Of course, not long after his “last territorial demand” was satisfied, Hitler invaded and annexed the rest of the country (with the exception of a small Slovak rump state that became a German vassal), and then invaded Poland, starting the deadliest conflict in human history and resulting in at least 60 million deaths. The Western democracies easily could have stopped Hitler at Munich and prevented World War II—we now know that some of Hitler’s top generals were ready to arrest him if the negotiations failed—but instead, cowardice and appeasement won the day. 

In the next few years, it is likely that America will find itself in the position that France and Britain were in during the Munich Conference, and we would do well to learn from their mistakes. Only this time, the country facing the threat of annexation will be Taiwan.

Like Czechoslovakia, Taiwan is a small nation, a prosperous democracy, and a balancing force against an aggressive, totalitarian neighbor: Communist China. And as with Czechoslovakia’s fate at Munich, allowing Taiwan to be gobbled up would only embolden China, leading to more aggression, more territorial claims, and, eventually, the outbreak of war.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Russian Collusion Perps Target Johnson Julie Kelly

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/10/russian-collusion-perps-target-johnson/

With Republicans at risk of losing control of the Senate in November, Senator Ron Johnson (R.-Wisc.) needs to work fast. Fortunately, it appears for now that Johnson is undeterred by the Democrats’ attempted character assassination of him.

Still unpunished for the first go-around, Russian collusion perpetrators are taking aim at a new target this time: Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The news media and Democratic lawmakers are accusing the two-term senator of acting as an agent of Russia for continuing to pursue his investigation into the Biden family’s shady ties to Burisma, the troubled Ukranian energy company that paid Hunter Biden millions of dollars while his father was vice president and Obama’s designated “point person” in Ukraine.

The onslaught began last month when Politico reported Johnson planned to subpoena Biden associates after they refused to voluntarily testify. 

“A Senate committee is eyeing subpoenas for current and former advisers to Joe Biden as part of an investigation into the former vice president’s son, an escalation of GOP scrutiny of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his family,” wrote Natasha Betrand and Andrew Desiderio on July 16. The pair accused Johnson of doing “just what Trump wants.”

Johnson and Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) reportedly started closed-door depositions last month; the Senate’s probe had been delayed first by impeachment then the coronavirus crisis. Johnson, however, is moving ahead and promised to issue a report in September that details how the Bidens and a Democratic-tied public relations firm leveraged their connections during the final few years of the Obama administration to lobby on Burisma’s behalf.

Since impeachment failed to permanently closet the Bidens’ Ukrainian skeletons, Democrats are calling their Hail Mary play—Russian collusion!—to thwart Republican efforts to expose the presidential candidate’s dirty dealings before election day.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is the New York Attorney General Selectively Investigating The NRA? by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16331/new-york-attorney-general-nra

If the evidence were to show selective investigation of the NRA, that would be part of a larger problem: the weaponization of our justice system for partisan and ideological purposes.

“Who will guard the guardians?” Who is investigating the decision by the Attorney General of New York to try to shut down the NRA?

Are there governing standards for conducting such investigations or shutting down first amendment-protected organizations? Or does the Attorney General claim the power to pick and choose which charitable organizations to investigate and shut down?

These and other questions should be addressed by the media, by lawyer’s groups in New York, by the ACLU and by others interested in the equal application of the law.

The announcement that the Attorney General of New York is investigating the National Rifle Association and looking to shut it down raises potentially serious constitutional concerns. I am no fan of the NRA. Politically, I think it wields too much influence against reasonable gun control, which I support as consistent with the Second Amendment. It is too closely connected with the profitability of gun manufacturers. It advocates positions and supports candidates, even if indirectly, that I believe undercut our safety.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Palestinian War on History by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16329/palestinian-war-on-history

“Every person, irrespective of whether or not they are disabled, should have the opportunity to visit the tomb, which is an important Jewish heritage site… The tomb belongs to us after Abraham bought it with his own money 3,800 years ago.” — Former Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett.

These Palestinian leaders continue to deny any Jewish connection to the holy site on the pretext that it belongs exclusively to Muslims. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki has condemned the elevator plan as an Israeli “war crime” and a “violation of international law.”

The winners? The Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who dream of extending their control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. This dream, thanks to the lawless and lethal regime of the Palestinian Authority — funded by the West — appears closer than ever.

Palestinian leaders seem more worried about an Israeli plan to install an elevator for disabled people at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron than about a Palestinian upsurge in violent crime.

The Israeli government recently approved the construction of a handicapped access elevator at the holy site. “Every person, irrespective of whether or not they are disabled, should have the opportunity to visit the tomb, which is an important Jewish heritage site,” said former Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett. “The tomb belongs to us after Abraham bought it with his own money 3,800 years ago.”

The 2,000-year-old structure was built by King Herod the Great to house the Cave of Machpela, burial site of the Biblical founding fathers and mothers. The site, divided into separate Muslim and Jewish prayer areas, has only steep staircases for entrances.

The decision to build the elevator came in response to the Israeli Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law that requires every public structure to be fully accessible to the disabled.

Palestinian leaders, however, do not seem to care about the rights of people with disabilities, particularly when it comes to providing access to Jews who want to pray at one of their holiest sites. These Palestinian leaders continue to deny any Jewish connection to the holy site on the pretext that it belongs exclusively to Muslims.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Noura Erakat Spins Jihad as “Car Accident” : Andrew Harrod

Posted By on August 11th, 2020

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/08/palestinian-rutgers-prof-spins-vehicular-jihad-attack-as-car-accident

“The car looks like from the video that it lost control,” Rutgers University law professor Noura Erakat recently fantasized about her Palestinian cousin’s June 23 death; her cousin was clearly filmed in a car ramming attack near Jerusalem against Israeli police. Her lies about this jihad violence, obvious to any objective observer, merely added to her grotesque Israel-hatred in a July 14 Institute of Middle East Understanding (IMEU) podcast with her equally radical host, Omar Baddar.

Baddar shamelessly introduced the “This is Palestine” podcast by describing the death of Ahmad Erakat, the nephew of leading Palestinian Authority (PA) official Saeb Erakat, as occurring in “what appeared to be a car accident.” Yet Israeli security cameras clearly recorded Ahmad driving his car into Israeli border police stationed at the so-called “container checkpoint” on the road between the PA communities of Bethlehem and Abu Dis, Ahmad’s home. A woman police officer, miraculously only lightly wounded in the attack after Ahmad’s car sent her flying, left no doubt about his deliberate assault.

Despite Baddar’s assertions that “Israeli authorities lied about Ahmad’s actions,” Ahmad subsequently rushed from his car, possibly to continue the attack. While Erakat claimed to see Ahmad “attempting to put his arms up” in surrender, the police in reality had no choice but to shoot him. Erakat also claimed that an Israeli ambulance, which arrived within five minutes of the shooting, made a “sadistic” refusal to treat Ahmad, but actually pronounced him dead upon arrival.