ISRAEL, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Democratic Majority for Israel Waves the White Flag in Presidential Contest Joshua Sharf

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/28/democratic-majority-for-israel-waves-the-white-flag-in-presidential-contest/

Jewish Democrats have let their distaste for Donald Trump warp American Jewish organizations’ responses to his overwhelmingly pro-Israel presidency. They have acted in the interests of partisanship over the people whose interests they are supposed to represent.

Word is that the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) is waving the white flag in the presidential race, will spend no more money on it, and will not endorse a candidate. DMFI had been running ads against Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

Democratic Majority for Israel does not intend to run any more televised ads against Sen. Bernie Sanders . . . beyond the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, DMFI CEO Mark Mellman confirmed to Jewish Insider. “We don’t have plans to be further involved in the presidential race—against Sanders or anyone else, for that matter,” Mellman told a gathering in New York City earlier this week.

Instead, the group will focus on down-ticket races, supporting pro-Israel Democrats in the primaries and general election.

It’s hard to overstate how bad this news is for those who want a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. And given that anti-Zionist is usually only a thin disguise for broader Jew-hatred, it’s hard to overstate how bad this news is for American Jewry.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Earth to Climate Alarmists: Warming Is Good By Jeffrey Folks

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/earth_to_climate_alarmists_warming_is_good.html

In terms of global food security, it is cold we should fear, not heat.

It’s cold tonight, and I sit at my desk, wishing it were warmer.  Even with central heat and air, winter is a difficult time.  My sinuses are inflamed, my knuckles are dry and red, and my joints are sore with the cold.  Every year I dread it more.  And now environmentalists like Jeff Bezos want to make it colder.

It’s no accident that Shakespeare wrote of “the winter of our discontent” (Richard III) and of “the icy fang / And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind” (As You Like It).  Shakespeare, who lived through some of the coldest decades of the Little Ice Age, found nothing to like about winter.  Nor did Dickens, who wrote often of “the winter of despair,” or, in a line about the short days of winter that applies to today’s liberals, “Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.”  Turn off the lights — you’re burning too much fossil fuel!

The fact is that cold is more damaging than heat.  Long, cold winters followed by cold, damp springs and summers diminish crop yields, leading to global hunger.  If the Earth were a few degrees warmer, that heat would expand corn and wheat belts to the north.  In terms of global food security, it is cold we should fear, not heat.

In the Little Ice Age, roughly from the 14th through the mid-19th century, global cooling limited food production, resulting in widespread hunger, disease, and economic stagnation.  In northern Europe, for instance, population growth was stagnant until the 19th century, and for most people, there was little improvement in daily life until after 1800.  In Britain, for example, population has soared from 10 million in 1800 to over 66 million today.  That would not have been possible in a period of cooler temperatures.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s parliamentary election was a test of survival By Hamid Enayat

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/irans_parliamentary_election_was_a_test_of_survival.html

You can probably guess whether the Islamic Republic passed or failed

The Ministry of the Interior finally announced the results of the election on Sunday, after a prolonged delay.  According to Interior minister Rahmani Fazli, out of approximately 58 million eligible voters, only 24.5 million participated in the election.  This means that tonly 42.5% of citizens voted, the lowest level of turnout in the last 41 years.  The Ministry of Interior added that the turnout in Tehran was 25%, meaning that 75% of the population did not participate at all.

The state-run newspaper Jahan-e San’at wrote on February 23: “The government avoids presenting any statistics that directly or indirectly show the total number of voters[.] … What comes to mind, however, is that the total number of votes cast by Iranian citizens was not significant.  The regime is keen to increase this number to prove its legitimacy.”

This is precisely the proof of the claims from the Iranian opposition, the MEK, about fake statistics during all elections.  Another state-run newspaper wrote, “Tehran has gone through one of the most unprecedented and low-profile elections in history.” 

Reporters who had traveled to Iran at the time of the election testified to widespread boycotts, despite visiting pre-determined constituencies.  The international community has doubts about the Iranian regime’s heavy defeat in this election.  This is while the Islamic Republic of Iran has continuously tried to say during the elections — presidential and parliamentary — that these elections are a referendum, and citizens are voting yes to the system with their participation.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Kurdistan After the U.S. Pullback Facing Turkey, Iran and ISIS’ regrouping remnants, the fighters are as determined as ever. By Bernard-Henri Lévy

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kurdistan-after-the-u-s-pullback-11582935154?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Qamishli, Syria

It’s my first time in Kurdistan since the U.S. pulled back and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his proxies invaded last October. How is the situation on the ground? Is Islamic State reappearing? And is the West doing anything to support the Kurdish fighters who are its most reliable allies not only in Syria but in Iraq and Iran? I came here to see with my own eyes.

I’m in the northeastern corner of Syria, at a modern prison in Derik (known in Arabic as Al-Malikiyah), in a cell that smells like an old basement and is filled with stale, garishly colored bedding. A Turkish missile just landed close by, as if to warn the detainees to flee.

I find myself face to face with a dozen French jihadists who were, I was told, among the most vicious assassins of Raqqa. Here they look like poor wrecks in dirty sweatpants and polo shirts—except for one, who was wounded when his legs got caught in a scrap-metal trap. “We know who you are!” he shouts at me in his northern French accent. This is followed by a general clamor of pitiful complaints along the lines of, “Do you know who is going to try us and when?”

These monsters who terrorized the world are now cut off from it. Deprived of daylight, of cellphones, of the single television set that was taken away when the Turkish offensive began, they don’t even know that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, their leader, is dead, killed in an Oct. 26 U.S. air raid. They have but one thing in mind: not to end up in Baghdad to face capital punishment, and instead to return to France, the homeland of the rights of man, including the right to a legal defense.

A few miles away is a cloister lined with arcades and only recently converted into a detention facility for the minor children of terrorists. One, a New Yorker named Nelson, says he’s never committed any crime except to have a father who was a terrorist.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

14 Crucial Questions That Bernie Sanders Surrogate Ilhan Omar Won’t Answer Ben Weingarten

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/28/14-crucial-questions-that-bernie-sanders-surrog

If Ilhan Omar is who Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders entrusts with Minnesota in 2020, America deserves a response to these burning questions about her past.

Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is perhaps best known for her antisemitic rhetoric, radically left-wing policy, and mounting allegations that she committed marriage and immigration fraud.

But as I argue in my new book, “American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party,” the sensational aspects of Omar’s story belie the fact that she is not only one of the most prominent symbols of the Democratic Party’s ascendant far-left base, but a powerful player in her own right. Her collusion with Islamist adversaries foreign and domestic, and alleged criminality and proven corruption, should send chills down the spines of Americans.

Ilhan Omar Is a Significant Democratic Player

Omar’s clout was demonstrated most recently when Democratic presidential front-runner Bernie Sanders tabbed her campaign co-chair in the all-important 2020 state of Minnesota. The congresswoman also recently introduced a battery of bills concerning foreign policy that senior Obama National Security Council official Ben Rhodes characterized as the “new progressive baseline.”

Lest we forget, this is a House member who, in spite of her known virulent antisemitism, blame America first positions, and potentially compromising background, retains a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which grapples with the most sensitive national security and foreign policy information and issues.

The party signaled a willingness to allow her to act with impunity, effectively condoning her rhetoric and behavior by refusing to censure her by name for her comments, specifically regarding the so-called Israel lobby, and her invocation of other antisemitic tropes.

Omar’s symbolic and substantive significance is summarized simply in the reality that a vote for Sanders is a vote for Omar and their shared agenda of socialism at home and submission abroad. Yet she has faced almost zero media scrutiny. She and her supporters attack as bigots the few who dare pursue her story. But it would be bigoted to treat her differently from any other politician on the basis of her identity traits.

In writing “American Ingrate,” I sought answers to some of the most vexing yet basic issues about Omar’s background, positions, and associations. I delivered a list of questions via email first to Omar’s chief communications staffer in September 2019, then to her general press account in December 2019, and again in February 2020 following the release of “American Ingrate.” Neither Omar nor her office ever responded.

Omar Should Answer These Questions

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

New Jersey Public Schools To Teach LGBT Ideology In Every Subject by John Hanna

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/27/new-jersey-public-schools-to-teach-lgbt-ideology-in-every-subject/

A little more than a year ago, the New Jersey Legislature passed, and Gov. Phil Murphy signed, a law mandating the teaching of LGBT subject matter in public school curriculum, beginning in 2020-21.

In response to the law, the activist group Garden State Equality has prepared a curriculum, currently piloted in 12 New Jersey schools and planned to be employed statewide in the fall. This is consistent with Murphy’s vision. At Garden State Equality’s 2019 Ball, he said, “I applaud Garden State Equality for not only leading this effort, but for your continued work in helping to craft this curriculum.

Garden State Equality (GSE) is an LGBT advocacy organization devoted to instilling its vision of “justice” through an “LGBT lens” in society. Consistent with its vision, GSE’s self-described “LGBT-inclusive” curriculum spans all subjects — math, English, social studies, health, science, visual and performing arts, and world languages — beginning in fifth grade. Having New Jersey’s 1.4 million public school students see the world through a LGBT lens is the goal in every class and, thus, now the goal of public education. This is well in excess of the curriculum law’s vague requirements.

In the way it is being implemented, the law is simply an instrument empowering GSE to accomplish its mission and vision, embedding sexual and gender ideology throughout curriculum. GSE envisions its curriculum “as a model that we can bring to every other state in the nation.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

PETE AND AMY TO SKIP AIPAC

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

Bloomberg is the only Democratic candidate confirmed to speak at the bipartisan pro-Israel lobby event.

By Aaron Sull, World Israel News

Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar announced this week that they will not attend next week’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference.

The reason given for their decision was that it interfered with their campaigning efforts leading up to next week’s Super Tuesday’s primary, JNS reports.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The Tyranny of the Marginalized The campaign to curtail speech in order to promote social justice is gathering strength.

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-tyranny-of-the-marginalized/

By Arthur Milikh, associate director of, and research fellow in, The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics.

From the New Deal to Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the Left’s fundamental transformation of America over the past century is astounding. A key to that achievement has been the discipline to hasten beyond recent victories and commence new battles. Today, leftists’ eyes are set on outlawing “hate speech.” In 2018, a New York Times article lamented conservatives’ success in “weaponizing the First Amendment.” “I have come to see,” said a regretful progressive law school professor, “that it’s a mistake to think of free speech as an effective means to accomplish a more just society.” Many conservatives, reluctant to believe what seems unbelievable, do not fully appreciate that the campaign to curtail speech in order to promote social justice is gathering strength and capturing powerful institutions. In the not very distant future, it could succeed.

Every Western European nation and the entire Anglosphere already criminalize hate speech. America is the only holdout. Nevertheless, California, always a leader in the field of misgovernance, has recently expressed interest in doing so. Many of our colleges and universities, of course, already administer Orwellian speech codes. Big Tech, with Twitter, Google, and Facebook leading the way, censors political content for violating stern but hazy standards based on the European model. And the United Nations relentlessly advocates criminalizing words that “dehumanize minority groups and other targeted people.” Without understanding where the desire to censor hate speech comes from, means, or would entail, many Americans are growing comfortable with the idea.

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Necessary (Temporary) Democratic Party Suicide The Democrats and the United States need a Sanders candidacy, so the existing party can be completely defeated, humiliated, and rebirthed. Conrad Black

Posted By on February 28th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/27/the-necessary-temporary-democratic-party-suicide/

The “Gong Show” of a Democratic presidential primary debate Tuesday night just made it clear how desperately this intellectually bankrupt rag-tag team of harpies and hustlers truly is. They are the heirs of the Clinton-Obama place men who mismanaged America, corrupted the Justice Department and the intelligence services, and created such a scarcity of serious candidates for the presidency.

The former mayor of New York City announced he was seeking the nomination because the 20 declared candidates were inadequate. He was correct—but so, on the face of things, is he inadequate. The debate in Charleston on Tuesday was like a scene from Lord of the Flies as a disorderly, screechy group of misbehaving superannuated juveniles spoke and shouted over each other, waving their arms in the air and exchanging epithets. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), her hopes withered by her mendacity, robotic uniforms, and humorless righteousness, is reduced to hurling vitriol at Mike Bloomberg.

Bloomberg was more responsive than in his first debate, but still exuded a presumption that everyone in America is enviously fixated on the Big Apple, and his attempts at humor bombed somewhat embarrassingly. It is hard to believe that more than $400 million has already been spent trying to promote the idea that this is the redeemer of Trump’s (increasingly well-satisfied) America.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), finally targeted as the frontrunner, was querulous and belligerent, shouting back at the audience and more demonstrative and short-tempered than ever. He is almost majestic, barricading himself into his praise of Fidel Castro and not budging an inch on the authoritarian extravagance of his compulsory medical care plan that would sweep away the satisfactory arrangements that 180 million Americans have already made with their physicians of choice.

It is the majesty of a persevering and cranky old man, but it is also acoustically irritating nonsense and anyone who imagines that the American electorate is going to put this raving, neo-Marxist, charmless, cantankerous old dervish into the White House is in the same fantasyland as the candidates.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Academic Blacklist Climate Alarmists Don’t Want You To Know About J. Frank Bullitt

Posted By on February 28th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/02/28/the-academic-blacklist-climate-alarmists-dont-want-you-to-know-about/

The global warming faithful are always quick with the talking points about a “scientific consensus” that doesn’t exist, and the tale that 97% of scientists say man is causing the planet to overheat. But we’ll never hear them discuss publicly how researchers who don’t agree with the narrative have been blacklisted.

What are they afraid of?

Of course the climate alarmists will never admit such a list even exists. But Roger Pielke Jr., who teaches science, environment, and technology policy at the University of Colorado, says it does.

“A climate advocacy group called Skeptical Science hosts a list of academics that it has labeled ‘climate misinformers,’” Pielke recently wrote in Forbes. “The list includes 17 academics and is intended as a blacklist.” 

Pielke says we know this through a Skeptical Science blogger “named Dana Nuccitelli.” According to Pielke, Nuccitelli believes that Judith Curry should be “unhirable in academia” based on her statements about global warming.

Nuccitelli tweeted that “Curry’s words, as documented … are what make her ‘unhirable.’” Both the blog and Nuccitelli of course deny there’s a blacklist.

The “unhirable” Curry is no crank. She is the former chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and is a fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society. She stepped down from her position at Georgia Tech at the insistence of an administrator, she told Pielke. The Earth and Atmospheric Sciences dean had heard from “several activist climate scientists who had a very direct pipeline to” the dean’s office, and had expressed their “extreme displeasure” over Curry’s presence at the school, she said.