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Corporate America Wants to Be Woke By Matthew Continetti

Posted By on September 8th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/corporate-america-wants-to-be-woke/

The politicization of firms is a double-edged sword.

Time was, CEOs of mighty enterprises shied away from politics, especially hot-button social and cultural issues. They focused instead on the bottom line. They maximized shareholder value by delivering goods and services to customers. Some businessmen still operate by this principle. In doing so they provide not only for their employees and CEOs and board members but also for the institutions — pensions, individual retirement plans, index funds, hospitals, philanthropies — that have invested in their companies.

That is no longer enough for many of America’s richest and most powerful. Suddenly, corporate America has a conscience. Every week brings new examples of CEOs intervening in political, cultural, and social debate. In every instance, the prominent spokesmen for American business situate themselves comfortably on the left side of the political spectrum. Shareholder capitalism finds itself under attack. Not just from socialism but also from woke capitalism.

These outbursts are not just virtue signaling. Nor is the left-wing tilt of corporate America merely a response to the “rising American electorate” of Millennial, Gen Z, and minority consumers. What is taking place is not a business story but a political one. What is known as “stakeholder capitalism” is another means by which elites circumvent democratic accountability.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

The Turn Toward a Pre-9/11 Mindset By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on September 8th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/afghanistan-airport-security-turn-toward-pre-9-11-mindset/

The national temperament has changed. But has the security environment?

N o one who is under 18 was alive on September 11, 2001, the annual remembrance of which we will mark on Wednesday. The 9/11 jihadist atrocities are, at most, a dim memory to the generation of Americans who are now coming of age, who will be our leaders in the bat of an eye.

The page has been turned. As President Trump is wont to say, we’ll see what happens.

What is now happening is a turn to a pre-9/11 security footing. Notice, I said a turn, not a return. It remains to be seen whether, in reality, we have gotten to the point where our threat environment is what it was thought to be before the onslaught; yet, the country has determined to conduct itself as if that were the case.

It’s a bold experiment. I doubt that it will work, though I’d love to be wrong.

Signs of the change were all around us this week, at home and half a world away. In Virginia, a federal judge invalidated the Terrorist Screening Database, a watch list secretly compiled by the government, which subjects those listed to heightened security vetting before they are permitted to board commercial aircraft. In Kabul, the Trump administration’s envoy struck an agreement in principle to reduce the number of American troops in Afghanistan, with an eye toward a withdrawal that would purportedly “end” what the president describes as our “endless” war — U.S. forces having invaded the country in those tense days, 18 years ago.

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Robert Mugabe, socialist curse of humanity, is gone By Monica Showalter

Posted By on September 8th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/robert_mugabe_socialist_curse_of_humanity_is_gone.html

Zimbabwe’s preening socialist strongman, Robert Mugabe, a man who left his once prosperous country a hellhole, is gone, and his end didn’t come soon enough.  He went out as one of the world’s worst curses against humanity.

Here’s the New York Times announcement:

Robert Mugabe, the first prime minister and later president of independent Zimbabwe, who traded the mantle of liberator for the armor of a tyrant and presided over the decline of one of Africa’s most prosperous lands, died on Friday. He was 95.

The death was announced by his successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

“It is with the utmost sadness that I announce the passing on of Zimbabwe’s founding father and former President, Cde Robert Mugabe,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday, using the abbreviation for comrade. “Mugabe was an icon of liberation, a pan-Africanist who dedicated his life to the emancipation and empowerment of his people. His contribution to the history of our nation and continent will never be forgotten.”

What a shame he died in his bed.  In more serious times, he would have gone out like Mussolini.

But just the fact that he was able to hang on for as long as he did draws attention worth looking at.

A truly good summary of his life and times appears in the London Telegraph’s obituary of the man this morning:

Robert Mugabe, the former president of Zimbabwe who has died aged 95, began his 37 years in power as a Nobel Peace Prize nominee credited with creating Africa’s most successful multiracial state.

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The U.S.-Taliban Negotiations: A Deadly Qatari Trap by Yigal Carmon

Posted By on September 7th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14816/us-taliban-negotiations-qatar

One can understand President Donald Trump’s wish to leave Afghanistan. There are, however, ways to leave without losing people, respect, and allies. Mr. Trump, instead of leaving unilaterally, while reinforcing the democratically elected government in Kabul without boots on the ground, is unfortunately empowering his Taliban enemy by protracted negotiations, where America makes successive concessions and ultimately throws its Afghan allies under the bus.
Afghan officials are the first to sense that the sellout of the Kabul government is impending, and are scurrying to defect to the Taliban (in July alone there were 800 defections).
As opposed to what many Americans think, Qatar did the US no favors in building the base in the mid-1990s. It needed an American base for its own self-protection and this dependence still persists. Without this base, this Lilliputian energy Gulliver would be taken over by its neighbors (whether Iranian or Saudi) within a day. The US military establishment ignores this reality to its own detriment, and behaves as if America is in Qatar’s debt rather than the reverse.
Qatar is already threatening to limit potential operations against Iran from Al-Udeid, should they be needed, and Qatar’s Tamim told Rouhani that “only countries [placed] along the coast [of the Persian Gulf] should keep security in the region.”

What is happening in Afghanistan is already beyond grief. The United States is negotiating with the Taliban, without the Taliban first agreeing to a cease-fire as a precondition for talks, and although President Trump has emphatically announced his determination to withdraw from the country, American soldiers are still being killed (in recent days, three American servicemen died). [1]

One can understand President Donald Trump’s wish to leave Afghanistan. Whether the US can sustain its strategic and economic leadership in the context of an isolationist policy, is a legitimate debate. This is the president’s and Congress’s purview. There are, however, ways to leave without losing people, respect, and allies. Mr. Trump, instead of leaving unilaterally, while reinforcing the democratically elected government in Kabul without boots on the ground, is unfortunately empowering his Taliban enemy by protracted negotiations, where America makes successive concessions and ultimately throws its Afghan allies under the bus.[2] Afghan officials are the first to sense that the sellout of the Kabul government is impending, and are scurrying to defect to the Taliban (in July alone there were 800 defections).[3]

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Econ Students Debunk Study Showing Drastic Rise in Hate Crimes Following Trump Rallies By Jack Crowe

Posted By on September 7th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/students-debunk-study-showing-226-percent-rise-hate-crimes-following-trump-rallies/

A study purporting to show area hate crimes tended to spike following Trump rallies, which went viral earlier this year, is fatally flawed in its methodology, according to a new analysis by two economics P.h.D. students at Harvard University.

The study, which found a 226 percent increase in white-nationalist propaganda and hate crimes in counties that hosted Trump campaign rallies, failed to account for political campaigns’ preference for hosting rallies in highly populated areas that naturally tend to experience more hate crimes, according to the analysis conducted by Harvard P.h.D. candidates Matthew Lilley and Brian Wheaton.

Lilley and Wheaton were able to replicate the initial study’s findings with respect to Trump rallies, but found an even greater increase in hate crimes in counties that hosted Clinton campaign rallies during the same period.

Once the researchers controlled for population size, the effect of Trump rallies on hate crimes became “statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

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School Integration Draws Scrutiny — From the Left By John Hirschauer

Posted By on September 7th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/school-integration-draws-scrutiny-from-left/

Long considered a signature achievement of the civil-rights movement, the integration of schools is coming under scrutiny in odd places.

EXCERPT:

More than fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, the Left has yet to make up its mind on the question of integration. Voices ranging from New York mayor Bill de Blasio to The Atlantic writer Jemele Hill have proposed radical changes to the way we approach the integration of our educational institutions, long considered to be a signature achievement of the civil-rights movement.

Bill de Blasio is weighing a proposal to halt most admissions to the city’s various “gifted and talented” programs, from specialized high schools such as Stuyvesant to special educational opportunities in ordinary public schools. A disproportionate number of Asian and white students are enrolled in gifted programs — the two groups accounted for 75 percent of enrollees last year — which, some say, creates a regime of de facto segregation in public schools. Maintaining strict racial quotas in public education is of such importance to the de Blasio administration that the mayor is earnestly considering removing race-blind programs that, at their best, are avenues to upward mobility for some of the poorest students in the state.

This is in stark contrast to Jemele Hill, who — though focusing on collegiate rather than elementary or secondary education — encourages black student-athletes to voluntarily segregate themselves at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Her latest piece in The Atlantic, “It’s Time for Black Athletes to Leave White Colleges,” decries “the flight of black athletes to majority-white colleges,” a process that she insists “has been devastating to HBCUs.”

Hill relates how, in some cases, “black students feel safer, both physically and emotionally, on an HBCU campus,” and insists that, as currently constructed, “Black athletes have attracted money and attention to the predominantly white universities that showcase them.” What if a movement began to, in effect, embrace de facto re-segregation?”

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Red-Flag Laws Should Trigger Treatment, Not Just Gun Confiscation By D. J. Jaffe

Posted By on September 7th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/red-flag-laws-should-mandate-treatment-not-just-gun-confiscation/

To seriously tackle the problem of mass shootings, we must get serious about tackling the problem of severe mental illness.

In the wake of recent mass shootings by Americans alleged to be mentally ill, President Trump has called for a national red-flag law that would preclude certain mentally ill individuals from owning or buying firearms. It’s a good idea, but for the seriously mentally ill, red-flag laws should also trigger treatment, not just gun confiscation.

It makes no sense to let people who are known to be seriously mentally ill and believed to be dangerous go without treatment, even if they have had their weapons taken away. It’s not compassionate. And it can be dangerous.

Forty percent of the seriously mentally ill have anosognosia, meaning they are unaware they are ill. Because they are unaware they are ill, they sometimes refuse treatment. Many become homeless, arrested, incarcerated, and needlessly hospitalized. Some, responding to their delusions, resort to violence that doesn’t involve guns. All of these outcomes could be avoided if they received treatment.

The red-flag law previously proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act of 2019, which is now being taken up by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), Joe Manchin (D., W.V.), and others, should be amended to provide a path to treatment for those who are identified as being too mentally ill to own guns.

New York provides a roadmap for how to do this. In 2013, it passed the New York SAFE Act. Among other provisions, the law required therapists to report to the county mental-health director the names of mentally ill people under their care who they believe to be dangerous and to possess guns. It then charged the county mental-health director with investigating the therapists’ reports and, if appropriate, instructing law enforcement to seize the guns from the individuals in question and enter their names into the federal NICS database, which would preclude them from making gun purchases. It further allowed for an appeals process through which the mental-health director’s determination could be challenged.

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anti-ICE Protesters in Boston Block Rush-Hour Traffic Eric Lendrum

Posted By on September 7th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/06/anti-ice-protesters-in-boston-block-rush-hour-traffic/

A far-left group protesting ICE took to the streets of Boston on Thursday, marching throughout the city and blocking rush-hour traffic for hours, as Fox News reports.

The group, “Never Again Action,” marched in protest of ICE without announcing the route they would be taking. As a result, the several hundred protesters marched across the Longfellow Bridge, which was the only route for hundreds more commuters in rush-hour traffic.

The march eventually stopped at the Amazon building near Cambridge, as part of their protest against private companies who supposedly cooperate with ICE in the detaining and deporting of illegal aliens. After arriving at Amazon, 12 of the protesters were arrested for trespassing, after which the remaining protesters eventually dispersed.

As Fox notes, Never Again Action previously saw 18 of its members arrested at a similar protest in July. The group also went viral for a protest in August where they blocked the driveway of an ICE facility in Rhode Island; a guard who worked at the facility and was trying to go to work accidentally almost drove into them, after which other personnel intervened and forced the protesters out using pepper spray.

Never Action Action is a self-described “Jews Against ICE” group founded in July, invoking the phrase “Never Again” as a reference to the Holocaust. This echoes the sentiment first promoted by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who compared migrant detention facilities to concentration camps, and even falsely accused such facilities of abusing detained illegals.

Although her claims have been debunked, her rhetoric has inspired an increase in terrorist actions against ICE and other immigration officials and facilities in recent months.

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The Europeans Keep Rejecting Liberty By Robert Curry

Posted By on September 7th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/09/the_europeans_keep_rejecting_liberty.html

Modern continental Europe keeps trying to solve its political problem — and then to impose its solution on everyone within reach.  Recognizing this historical process can help us understand European anti-Americanism, strongest perhaps in Germany.  America created the Europeans’ political predicament, and we keep preventing them from adopting the solutions they come up with.

America created the Europeans’ political problem by the magnificent example of the American Revolution and the astonishing, world-changing success of America.  In an interesting version of the story of the emperor’s new clothes, rule by hereditary monarchs, hereditary aristocracies, and established churches was suddenly revealed to be absurd and indefensible.

The only problem was that continental Europe was for the most part incapable of self-rule.  The attempts, for example, by Germany, Italy, and France to achieve reasonably stable regimes of rule by their own people would be comical but for the terrible human consequences of their repeated failures.

With the exception of the Netherlands and a few other European countries that, like Britain, have achieved rule by their own people, the modern history of continental Europe is the story of people trying various experiments in an ongoing effort to relieve themselves of the burden of self-rule.

For a while, it seemed certain that fascism was going to be the European solution.  The Germans and the Italians took the lead, but there were at the same time homegrown fascist movements throughout Europe, even in Britain.  The French earned from Homer Simpson the sobriquet “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” because of their feeble resistance to the Nazi invaders and their swift adoption of a policy of collaboration with their Nazi rulers.  If it weren’t for America’s military intervention, the Nazis would likely have defeated Britain, and fascist Europe would have reached from Ireland’s western shore to Moscow and beyond.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Liberalism Politics US Politics The Democrats find religion The DNC have adopted a new secular creed Augustus Howard

Posted By on September 7th, 2019

https://spectator.us/democrats-find-religion/

Now for some bracing honesty from the Democratic National Committee. In a new, unanimously adopted resolution, Democrats have declared that ‘the religiously unaffiliated demographic represents the largest religious group within the Democratic party, growing from 19 percent in 2007 to one in three today’ (emphasis added). Advocates for truth in political advertising should rejoice. The so-called ‘secular’ left has finally abandoned the canard that its views and policies are purely ‘neutral,’ or the products of inarguable empiricism. According to the resolution, the religiously unaffiliated and the nonreligious (labels used interchangeably) are, instead, members of a new faith community. This may be the first time that the Democratic party, or any official organ of the American left, has forthrightly declared the true objective of its modern politics: the promotion and enshrinement of a new religion.

With this declaration, Democrats are taking seriously their current, favorite term, ‘wokeness’ – the religious resonance of which is unavoidable. For them, to be woke is to be awakened to new knowledge, to be freed from one’s old, ignorant ways and to share in life-changing revelation. Thus, the Democrats’ woke resolution – a concise, one-page distillation of the modern, American left worldview – reads as a confessional, creedal document. It speaks of ‘values’: ‘religiously unaffiliated Americans overwhelmingly share the Democratic party’s values.’ It speaks of ostracism and suffering for beliefs: ‘the nonreligious have often been subjected to unfair bias and exclusion in American society.’ And, it articulates the essential, core aims of the creed by praising the religiously unaffiliated as ‘advocates for rational public policy based on sound social science and universal humanistic values.’

The resolution embodies what Charles Taylor, a scholar of secularism, terms ‘the independent ethic.’ According to Taylor, in establishing an independent ethic, a group will ‘deduce certain exceptionless norms’ and ‘abstract from…deeper or higher beliefs altogether for purposes of a political morality.’ And, as Taylor explains, when there ‘are real live atheists in the society…they will live an independent ethic not as some thought experiment, but as the basis of their moral lives.’ In this way, an apparently nonreligious or even overtly anti-religious creed can assume the character of what is actually religious fundamentalism.