MEDIA, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Teen Vogue Encourages Children To Explore Prostitution As A Career By Chrissy Clark (Huh??!!)

Posted By on June 18th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/17/teen-vogue-encourages-children-explore-prostitution-career/

On April 26, Teen Vogue posted an article titled “Why Sex Work is Real Work” by Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng. Teen Vogue tweeted the article out again today.

Teen Vogue
✔ @TeenVogue

Yes, sex work is real work! http://tnvge.co/VnFnlN7

The author, who is also the founder of Nalane Reproductive Justice, explains why she believes sex work should be decriminalized.

“The idea of purchasing intimacy and paying for the services can be affirming for many people who need human connection, friendship, and emotional support,” Mofokeng said.

What drew outrage, beyond the obvious, was that the article was published in Teen Vogue, a magazine targeted toward 13-year-old girls.

This article reduces the work of a medical professional to that of a sex worker. In her piece, Mofokeng questions why having a medical degree to talk about sex-related problems differs from physically performing sexual acts. Both are a transfer of cash, therefore both ought to be legal.

With that line of logic, we should legalize all drugs because doctors give out drugs; therefore crack dealers should be allowed to give out drugs. They’re both a transfer of cash, after all.

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Another Anti-Israel Academic Coming to Campus Near You avatar by Moshe Phillips

Posted By on June 18th, 2019

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/06/17/another-anti-israel-academic-coming-to-campus-near-you/https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/06/17/another-anti-israe

Usually by the time we hear about an anti-Israel professor at some university, it’s too late — she or he already has tenure, is chair of the department, or is so deeply entrenched in other ways that there’s simply no way to prevent him or her from turning young minds against Israel for decade after decade.

But once in a while, fate hands us an alert. Take the case of Kyle Stanton of Albany, New York. He hasn’t even finished his PhD yet, but he has already joined the world of academic Israel-haters. So get ready. Pretty soon he could be teaching your sons and daughters at their college.

Stanton is a PhD candidate and a teaching assistant at the State University of New York at Albany. During the past year or so, his articles have begun to appear in a variety of journals. Academic writing is among the prized stepping stones to a full-fledged university teaching position.

Stanton’s first published writings reveal that he has some very strong opinions about the Arab-Israeli conflict — and a profound bias against Israel.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran to Increase Uranium Enrichment in Violation of 2015 Nuclear Treaty By Jack Crowe

Posted By on June 17th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/iran-to-increase-uranium-enrichment-in-violation-of-2015-nuclear-treaty/

Iranian officials announced on Monday that they will begin to increase uranium enrichment in violation of the 2015 international nuclear treaty from which the U.S. already has withdrawn.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Agency, said the country’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium will surpass the limit established under the treaty within ten days, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim.

The announcement by Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency comes weeks after Tehran threatened to violate the 2015 nuclear treaty if the pact’s remaining European signatories failed to shield the country from the effects of U.S. sanctions within 60 days.

  

Kamalvandi left open the possibility of returning to compliance with the treaty if the European parties help to relieve some of the burden of U.S. sanctions by establishing alternative trade arrangements.

“As long as they comply by their commitments, these will go back,” Kamalvandi said during a televised press conference at the country’s Arak nuclear plant.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran continued to escalate last week after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Iran was responsible for an attack on two oil tankers that occurred in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday morning.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Since When Are Liberals against Investigating the CIA and FBI? By Jonathan S. Tobin

Posted By on June 17th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/liberals-against-investigating-cia-fbi/Since Trump took office, of course.

Was there ever a time when Americans had unquestioning faith in federal law-enforcement agencies? Maybe in the days before Vietnam and Watergate, most citizens did believe that those in charge of the nation’s fate could be trusted. Before World War II, the FBI’s formidable public-relations machine actually produced a popular radio and television program lauding its efforts “in peace and war.” After the war, when the CIA became the country’s first full-time foreign-intelligence agency, few Americans understood much about what it was doing, and what little they did know was colored by the government’s propaganda efforts.

But ever since the upheaval of the late 1960s and early 1970s seemed to make cynicism about government our new national pastime, the notion that the intelligence community is above politics has been as outdated as the adulation once accorded to J. Edgar Hoover. It’s in that context that we should understand the recent debate about whether it’s appropriate to scrutinize the CIA and FBI’s role in the origins of the Russia probe. Though Democrats are now treating criticism of federal law enforcement as beyond the pale, their newfound faith is every bit as partisan as Republicans’ newfound skepticism. A sober look at the history of the past few decades reveals that, to paraphrase Clausewitz, in Washington, intelligence has always been a matter of politics by other means.

Attorney General William Barr’s decision to launch an investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation has caused some predicable anger among Democrats and other Trump-administration critics. This discomfort stems from what they regard as an attempt to flip the narrative from Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia to a dubious decision by the FBI to begin spying on the political opponents of Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration.

Given the failure of the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to prove the collusion allegations, Barr’s attempt to determine whether the unprecedented probe of a presidential campaign was an abuse of power seems reasonable. But Barr’s decision is a huge problem for Democrats who are hoping to pursue the impeachment of Trump by picking up the case that Mueller failed to make after two years of effort.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sorry, banning plastic bags won’t save our planet Bjørn Lomborg

Posted By on June 17th, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-sorry-banning-plastic-bags-wont-save-our-planet/

Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.

Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan to reduce plastic pollution, which will include a ban on single-use plastics as early as 2021. This is laudable: plastics clog drains and cause floods, litter nature and kill animals and birds.

Of course, plastic also makes our lives better in a myriad of ways. In just four decades, plastic packaging has become ubiquitous because it keeps everything from cereals to juice fresher and reduces transportation losses, while one-use plastics in the medical sector have made syringes, pill bottles and diagnostic equipment more safe.

Going without disposable plastic entirely would leave us worse off, so we need to tackle the problems without losing all of the benefits.

The simplest action for consumers is to ensure that plastic is collected and used, so a grocery bag, for example, has a second life as a trash bag, and is then used for energy.

Explainer: Canada’s single-use plastics ban: What we know so far and what you can do to recycle better

But we need to be honest about how much consumers can achieve. As with other environmental issues, instead of tackling the big-picture problems to actually reduce the plastic load going into oceans, we focus on relatively minor changes involving consumers, meaning we only ever tinker at the margins.

More than 20 countries have taken the showy action of banning plastic bags, including even an al-Qaeda-backed terrorist group which said plastic bags pose “a serious threat to the well-being of humans and animals alike.”

But even if every country banned plastic bags it would not make much of a difference, since plastic bags make up less than 0.8 per cent of the mass of plastic currently afloat on the world’s oceans.

FOREIGN POLICY, POLITICS Comments turned off

Mr. Biden: President Trump Is an Existential Threat to Your Legacy and Obama’s, Not to National Security Check out what the previous administration did to national security. by Fred Gedrich

Posted By on June 17th, 2019

https://spectator.org/mr-biden-president-trump-is-an-existential-threat-t

In a recent Iowa speech former U.S. Vice President and Democrat presidential aspirant Joe Biden claimed President Donald Trump and his policies are an existential threat to Americans. It seems quite odd that he would say such a thing, especially since many security-conscious Americans consider the Obama/Biden administration’s eight-year foreign policy record a colossal failure, which threatened Americans and tens of millions of others.

In 2008, then Senator and Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama chose Senator Biden to be his presidential running mate. Obama considered Biden, with his 36-year U.S. Senate tenure, a leading foreign policy authority as well as a seasoned legislator and Washington hand well-experienced in D.C. ways. Before leaving office, President Obama awarded Vice President Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his service to country and his administration.

When they took office in January 2009 many Americans believed the Obama/Biden administration would offer the country a welcome change in direction from the previous George W. Bush administration and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars which consumed it. Consequently, it raised expectations for a better and safer world, not only for Americans but everyone else. During their administration, Obama and Biden followed their global worldview impulses and displayed a willingness to make greater use of the United Nations and other international institutions in resolving the world’s most difficult problems. The centerpiece of their foreign policy and national security strategy was “strategic patience,” a concept built around not immediately reacting to global crises, and instead, looking to the international community to resolve them.

How well did the Obama/Biden approach work? The 2016 U.S. Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment provides a glimpse of what the world looked like after eight years of pursuing Obama/Biden administration policies. It isn’t a pretty picture. For example, the Obama/Biden administration’s U.S. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, briefed Congress on the security threats identified by 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. Mr. Clapper, among other things,reported:

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

SEE THIS KATIE HOPKINS VIDEO

Posted By on June 17th, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orTAUMMWd-A

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Lessons from Israel’s First US Ambassador By Dr. Asaf Romirowsky

Posted By on June 17th, 2019

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-ambassador-james-mcdonald/

Following Harry Truman’s recognition of the Provisional Government of Israel in early 1949, James McDonald was appointed the first US ambassador to the nascent Jewish state. In his memoirs, McDonald discusses Israel-Diaspora relations, which are as central today as they were in the early days of the State. This topic continues to be a source of division: witness the slanderous attacks made by Muslim Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar regarding American Jews’ “dual loyalties” and the State of Israel.

After the slanderous assaults on American Jews and on Israel by Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, there was a slew of condemnations from many sectors of the American political establishment and the Jewish community. Eliot Engel, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on Omar to apologize and said: “I welcome debate in Congress based on the merits of policy, but it’s unacceptable and deeply offensive to call into question the loyalty of fellow American citizens because of their political views, including support for the US-Israel relationship. We all take the same oath. Worse, Representative Omar’s comments leveled that charge by invoking a vile anti-Semitic slur.”

James McDonald, who was appointed the first US ambassador to Israel in 1951, understood the vulnerability of American Jews to such slurs. He wrote in that year:

Israel, it must be remembered, is not only a nation among the nations but also a Jewish community among Jewish communities. Unique though it is in being a community not scattered but together, not a minority but a majority, not a factor in the State but its author and raison d’être, it is still one Jewish community among others. Because of its special position it has special problems in its relationships with the other communities…Against the extreme Zionist (or anti-Zionist) logician who holds that the Jew has a clear-cut choice – complete assimilation or return to Israel – stands the stubborn experience of history, which suggests that here again reality thrives on apparent inconsistency. Every available indication is that the Diaspora will continue to exist and will continue to face many problems in relation to Israel. One of these problems grows out of the old bogy of dual allegiance. Can one be a Jew and an American, a Jew and an Englishman? This problem is inherent, I think in the very nature of man as a complex being with diverse ends. All men have not single but multiple allegiances. If a Jew has an emotional sympathy for another State because in that State live other Jews, his attitude is no different from that of an American of Irish descent who has an affection for Ireland and interest in its welfare.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Rape of 7-year-old by Palestinian called ‘terrorism’ by Right

Posted By on June 17th, 2019

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Rape-of-7-year-old-Jewish-child-shocks-the-nation-Palestinian-suspected-592809

A rape of a seven-year-old Israeli girl by a Palestinian man earlier this year has turned into a political football, with right-wing politicians calling it a hate-motivated “terrorist attack.”

The suspect, a resident of the West Bank town of Deir Qaddis near Modi’in Illit who was employed as a school cleaner in a settlement, was charged on Sunday for the alleged rape, assault and abduction of the child.

Police claim that the man met the child during his work as a school cleaner, offered her candy to inspire her trust in him, and eventually led her forcibly to a house near the school to assault her. The suspect claimed he didn’t commit the crime, and police have been unable to track down two other men who were allegedly present at the time of the attack.

The Military Advocate-General reported on Monday that there is no indication that the rape was motivated by nationalistic ideology, Maariv reported. However, the attorney for the family – which lives in the Binyamin area of the West Bank – from the Honenu National legal defense organization told Ynet that the suspect attacked the girl because she was Jewish.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe’s Italian Stranglehold The EU could punish Rome for pushing pro-growth policy.

Posted By on June 17th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-italian-stranglehold-11560716406

Italian Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini is favored to become the country’s next Prime Minister, and European Union mandarins are improving the euroskeptic’s chances. See how Brussels is handling its latest fiscal dispute with Rome.

The European Commission is on course to impose a fine of up to €3.5 billion on Rome to punish it for breaking EU budget rules. Governments are supposed to keep their fiscal deficit below 3% of gross domestic product and total debt under 60% of GDP. Many EU members violate these strictures, but Rome is unusually bad. Italian debt is expected to reach more than 135% in 2020, and the Commission frets about Rome’s deficit, which ran 2.1% in 2018.

This triggered a fiscal showdown last year, which ended when Rome agreed to make minor changes to its budget and Brussels pretended the numbers would add up. But now the EU complains that Italy’s motley left-right coalition government isn’t abiding by that deal and is teeing up another fiscal battle. A June 5 Commission report recommends opening up an “excess deficit procedure,” though it would take weeks and several bureaucratic hurdles before a fine is imposed.

The EU seems alarmed by Mr. Salvini’s tax-reform plan, which goes to show that Brussels doesn’t understand incentives for growth. Mr. Salvini wants to capitalize on the political boost from a recent European Parliament election win to push for a flat tax on personal and small-business incomes up to €50,000. He hasn’t divulged many details, but this is the best idea anyone in Rome has had in years to simplify Italy’s tax code and maybe cut down on evasion.

EU mandarins see only what they view as “lost revenue” from this proposal, but Italy’s fiscal crisis is building despite high taxes. Some 42% of GDP goes to the government. Rome wastes too much of that on misdirected social spending. What’s missing is economic growth to expand the tax base.