Prada and the New Fashion Police A legal settlement threatens designers’ artistic expression.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/prada-and-the-new-fashion-police-11581120144?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Move over, Anna Wintour. New York City regulators now have the final say over what constitutes a fashion faux pas. This week the city’s Commission on Human Rights announced a sweeping settlement with Prada over some of its designs, and the terms threaten artistic expression across the industry.

The brouhaha began in December 2018 when Chinyere Ezie, a lawyer at a social-justice nonprofit, discovered Prada’s Pradamalia collection. Prada described its bag charms, figurines and other trinkets as “a new family of mysterious tiny creatures that are one part biological, one part technological, all parts Prada.” Ms. Ezie instead saw “blackface imagery” and “Sambo like imagery,” she wrote in a Facebook post that went viral.

Within days, Prada pulled the merchandise and said it “never had the intention of offending anyone and we abhor all forms of racism and racist imagery.” Ms. Ezie still filed a complaint. In this week’s settlement Prada denies engaging in unlawful discriminatory practices. Yet the agreement gives New York City bureaucrats broad influence over the fashion house’s day-to-day operations, including its creative process, training and hiring.

Prada now must appoint a diversity and inclusion officer who can review all of “Prada’s designs before they are sold, advertised or promoted in any way in the United States.” The diversity cop will ensure that “Prada’s activities, including, without limitation, its production, advertising, and business activities, are conducted in a racially equitable manner.”

George Parry :Saving Private Ciaramella The alleged “whistleblower” may get the whistle blown on himself.

https://spectator.org/saving-private-ciaramella/

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
— Rudyard Kipling, “The Young British Soldier”

So it’s over. The impeachment of President Trump, the latest and by no means last installment in the Democrats’ deranged and all-consuming effort to disenfranchise the 63 million unenlightened, Untermenschen Americans who had the bad taste not to vote for Hillary Clinton, has come to its completely predictable end. The House managers figuratively had their heads caved in and teeth scattered like bloody chiclets on the floor of the Senate as the president’s lawyers effortlessly and humiliatingly pureed their flimsy case and fed it back to them like so much rancid pablum.

As the impeachment case was publicly exposed as a corrupt and baseless frame-up, Trump’s approval ratings and campaign fundraising reached new heights. Similarly, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trump’s acquittal also enhanced the electoral prospects of Senate Republicans who face difficult races in November.

Moreover, to the undoubted surprise and consternation of the Democrat geniuses who ginned up Trump’s impeachment, his trial generated a bare minimum of public interest. Not only were there empty seats in the Senate gallery, but the trial also quickly turned into a television-ratings bust as well as a major irritant to potential voters who were deprived of their daily ration of soap operas and celebrity talk shows. As the impeachment farce played out, the vast majority of everyday Americans who have actual lives to lead ignored the Senate trial and attended to other, more important matters, such as rearranging their sock drawers and stenciling their driveways.

Terror cells: how Britain’s prisons became finishing schools for extremists Ian Acheson

https://spectator.us/terror-cells-britain-prisons-became-finishing-schools-extremists/

Sometimes it appears as if, over the past 10 years, the British government has been actively trying to destroy the whole criminal justice system. It’s like an evil experiment: impose a 20 percent cut in the prisons budget, meaning a 26 percent reduction in the number of operational front line staff — then sit back and see what happens. What happened was predictable, with disastrous consequences for both inmates and the public. As a previous Conservative home secretary once said, our prisons became places that ‘make bad people worse’.

Imagine a young man like Sudesh Amman arriving in prison after his first offense. He was already a drug user, known to have a cannabis habit. He was mentally unstable and radicalized by Islamist propaganda. He entered a prison that’s usually overcrowded, frequently filthy and with too few staff struggling just to keep people alive (themselves included) from one end of the day to the other.

Inside, all of his problems are not addressed but exacerbated. In most prisons there’s a rampant drugs economy that destroys lives and drives much of the violence. It makes the task of reforming offenders near impossible. The money to be made from drugs inside is extraordinary. The predators can access their customer base without leaving their cells. Mobile phones actually designed and sold for their ability to be stored where the sun don’t shine have handy apps to transfer the cash to the dealers. It’s also convenient for the dealers that many of the captive consumers have huge unmet needs with mental health problems. Finally, charismatic hate preachers are in close proximity to credulous, violent, addicted young men in search of meaning and excitement.

TRASHING AMERICA AS RACIST

https://nypost.com/2020/02/07/trashing-america-as-racist-wont-help-democrats-beat-trump/

Trashing America as racist won’t help Democrats beat Trump John Podhoretz,

The Democrats are lucky the February debate in New Hampshire took place on a Friday night, when relatively few were watching — because if they wanted to deliver the message to the working-class white people who delivered the upper Midwest and the presidency to Donald Trump in 2016 that they should stick with him rather than voting blue in November, they did a brilliant job of it.

Tom Steyer, the billionaire who’s trying to buy a win Bloomberg-style in the South Carolina Democratic primary, issued a stark warning at the beginning of the Democratic debate Friday night in New Hampshire: Trump has the economic numbers that can help him get reelected, and Democrats are going to need to have a strong message to overwhelm it.

About an hour into the debate, they found their message: America, Bernie Sanders said, is “a racist society from top to bottom.”

One by one, the candidates echoed the message that “systemic racism” characterizes America.  continue reading…

“Abrahamic Dialogue” Is Submission to Islam Andrew Bostom

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25160

Faruqi’s modern application of Islamic religious doctrine to “Abrahamic dialogue” has engendered a supremacist, jihadist and anti-Israel “interfaith” dialogue.

U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Callista Gingrich, in an official January 16, 2020 written statement on the launching, at her residence, of the so-called “Abrahamic Faiths Initiative,” (AFI) opined, rapturously,

“The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative serves as a powerful demonstration that, through fraternity, cooperation, and mutual respect between the Abrahamic faiths, peace in our world is possible.”

Last February, 2019, to commemorate the signing of the Abu Dhabi Declaration, in conjunction with a visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University—Sunni Islam’s Papal equivalent of its Vatican—UAE despot Sheikh Al-Nayan ordered the construction of the Abrahamic Family House on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. When Ambassador Gingrich gave her live remarks to the AFI at Villa Richardson on January 14, 2020, she acknowledged Grand Imam Tayeb’s signing of the Abu Dhabi “Document on Human Fraternity” as critical inspiration for the initiative:

“The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative was inspired in part by the seminal Document on Human Fraternity and Living Together, signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi last year.”

Iranian Nationalists Reject Arabia’s Islamic Yoke Andrew Harrod

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/02/iranian-nationalists-reject-arabias-islamic-yoke

Iranian Nationalists Reject Arabia’s Islamic Yoke

The “average Iranian, though he may sympathize with the Palestinians, cannot identify with the Arabs, whom he regards as an ancestral foe,” Iranian expatriate author Amir Taheri has written. As this occasional series has previously explored, such national historical memories underline Iran’s conflicted relationship with Arabs and the Islamic faith that their past imperialism imposed…
www.jihadwatch.org

The “average Iranian, though he may sympathize with the Palestinians, cannot identify with the Arabs, whom he regards as an ancestral foe,” Iranian expatriate author Amir Taheri has written. As this occasional series has previously explored, such national historical memories underline Iran’s conflicted relationship with Arabs and the Islamic faith that their past imperialism imposed upon Iran and its ancient heritage.

“The early Islamic conquerors of the seventh century spread Islam and the Arabic language throughout the Persian Empire and attempted a wholesale replacement of the indigenous culture,” Middle East analyst Sarah Katz has noted. Iran scholars have observed that as the

conquest of most of Iran turned out to be permanent, Islam eventually spread among Iranians, and Arabic became the language of religion, literature, and science in Iran. In this respect the Muslim Arab conquest marks a major turning point in the history of Iran.

“Over time, most of the country’s population converted to Islam, but Persia’s historical and cultural legacy proved resilient,” Katz has noted, as at the aptly named Persians are not Arabs website. It has boasted that “Persians actually pride themselves that they fought to remain as Persians, not Arabs,” and “did everything to maintain their language when Egypt and other countries from north of Africa started to speak Arabic.” Iranian-American Amil Imani has concurred: “Unlike the Persians, the Egyptians became completely Arabized, and have little or no nostalgia for their ancient past. Islam has dominated the Egyptians’ lives.”

ELECTIONS ARE COMING-SPEAKING OF IOWA HELP RE-ELECT SENATOR JONI ERNST!

Joni Kay Ernst is a former military officer serving as the junior United States Senator for Iowa since 2015. A Republican, she served in the Iowa Senate from 2011 to 2014. She served in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1993 to 2015, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

To date there are several Democrat challengers to this outstanding Senator.

To learn more and to help please go to
https://joniernst.com/

The Netherlands: The Geert Wilders Show Trial Continues by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15553/geert-wilders-show-trial

The emails indicate that Prime Minister Mark Rutte himself was involved in the decision to prosecute Wilders.

“Minister Van der Steur has deliberately withheld those documents, as is apparent from these documents. Moreover, it appears that another Justice Minister, Minister Opstelten, lied…” — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020

“Mr. Presiding Judge, the Minister of Justice interfered in detail with my conviction. The documents even state that the Ministry of Justice instructed the public prosecutor — you will find the word ‘instruct’ in the documents….” — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020

“And every day that this trial continues and you do not punish the conspiring prosecution, and the Ministry of Justice for their lies and haggling with the principles of an independent, fair and balanced trial, by declaring them inadmissible, every day this trial continues is a black day in the history of Dutch justice.” — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020

“In the Wilders case, we certainly do not have to rely on the judge to agree with Wilders and to reach the conclusion that there has been a political trial, which is therefore not legally valid…. Wilders case appears to have been pre-cooked in the cabinet itself…. [Prime Minister] Rutte himself was involved…. The lying and spinning must stop somewhere…. This rule of law, in which judges and prosecutors receive instructions by the politicians on how to act, is rotten from within.” – Joost Niemöller, Dutch Journalist, Ongehoordnederland.nl, February 5, 2020

Newly released documents show that senior members of the Dutch government — including the prime minister and two former justice ministers — applied political pressure on public prosecutors to indict Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV), for hate speech for comments he made about Islam and Moroccan immigrants.

The Left’s War on Free Speech: Battlefront Facebook To the Left, property is property, be it physical or intellectual, and confiscation is confiscation. They believe your property is theirs to confiscate. Thaddeus G. McCotter

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/07/the-lefts-war-on-free-speech-battlefront-facebook/

One would think an editor of an online magazine would be a staunch defender of free speech. One would be wrong.

Keith A. Spencer, Salon’s senior editor responsible for its science, technology, health, and the economy coverage, once more reveals the elitist Left’s abject contempt for your ability to think for yourself and make your own decisions.

Spencer has spewed a diatribe against Facebook with a bitterly ironic title: “How Facebook Misunderstands Free Speech: Freedom of Speech Doesn’t Matter Much If Only the Wealthy and Corporations Can Afford to Proselytize.”

What set Spencer’s First Amendment-protected cyber pen to screen was Facebook’s decision that it will not ban, censor, or fact-check political ads. Simon deemed it a “universally-reviled announcement,” because the likes of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and some leftist twitter trolls brandishing a hashtag like an epee—and, of course, Spencer—didn’t dig it. (One senses Spencer’s universe is rather finite.)

As the Supreme Court has consistently ruled, however, political speech is the most highly protected form of speech. So one suspects someone might welcome Facebook’s decision.

After all, what is there “universally” to revile about it? Per Facebook, the company made the decision because “we don’t believe it’s an appropriate role for us to referee political debates and prevent a politician’s speech from reaching its audience and being subject to public debate and scrutiny.”

In conjunction with its announcement, Facebook also unveiled improvements to its Ad Library, which will allow users to see who is paying for the ad; why the user was targeted for the ad; and what other ads the candidate or organization is promoting.

So what’s the problem? None for free citizens of our free republic who believe in free speech. But the problem for Spencer and his fellow leftists is the lack of control they would have over the free speech you receive and disseminate.

Trump’s New War On Wasteful Spending — An Advance Draft Of The President’s Budget To Congress (FY2021) Adam Andrzejewski

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/02/06/trumps-new-war-on-wa

President Donald Trump is taking action to declare war on waste.

This week, we reviewed an advance copy of the President’s Budget FY2021 that will be submitted to Congress on Monday, February 10th. The president’s budget includes a bold and detailed chapter on curbing waste, fraud, corruption, and taxpayer abuse.

… [a] bloated Federal Government, with duplicative programs and wasteful spending, remains a critical threat to America’s future.

President’s Budget FY2021 | Chapter: Stopping Wasteful And Unnecessary Spending, page 13

Our organization at OpenTheBooks.com has advocated these goals from the pages of The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. With the national debt standing at $23.2 trillion and annual budget deficits of over $1 trillion, we applaud the president for starting a war on waste.

Here are just three of the non-partisan reforms the president will highlight in his FY2021 budget to Congress:

1. End Improper Year-End Waste. The federal government’s use-it-or-lose-it year-end spending spree has been going on for years. In our recent oversight report, we found $97 billion spent by 67 federal agencies during the final month of fiscal year 2018. In the last week of the fiscal year, $53 billion in contracts went out the door – that’s one in every ten dollars spent in the entire year.