ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Cultural Casualties of Life in the Fast Lane Patrick Morgan

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/07

Milan Kundera observed in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:

In times when history moved slowly, events were few and far between and easily committed to memory. They formed a commonly accepted backdrop for thrilling scenes of adventure in private life. Nowadays, history moves at a brisk clip … No longer a backdrop, it is now the adventure itself, an adventure enacted before the backdrop of the commonly accepted banality of private life.

The present time and the public realm have upended the past and the private. Give us this day our daily drama of the news cycle. Life on the iPad, Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter take up a good deal of each day, not to mention reading newspapers, watching television and answering the day’s emails, letters and recorded messages. Longer-term projects are postponed in the face of pressing, but passing, matter. (On the positive side, the internet provides an enormous library at our instant disposal.) You may get a lot of “likes”, but this merely reinforces your own views at the expense of more challenging inputs. T.S. Eliot said he didn’t read the newspapers because they were too exciting. We become vicarious actors, expert media sleuths in a continuing global drama, fulfilled by being in touch with vital contemporary currents. The spheres of our inner world and the world conversation happily align. The personal moves to the public sphere.

The ancients juggled carpe diem (living for the day) with vanitas vanitatum (the futility of human endeavour), but for us it’s a no-brainer. In the past, delayed gratification and instinctual renunciation were the ways to achieve long-term goals, but large swathes of our culture have settled for hedonism, stroking of the ego, and instant entertainment. The Bible taught the Jewish and Christian peoples there was nothing new under the sun, but since the 1960s we have been propelled by the shock of the new. This has come about because a unidirectional tendency has overtaken contemporary thought, moving discussion into ever narrower channels and towards the present. Unlikely notions, sometimes originating in the academies, filter down to the media where they are given wider credence by public opinion-formers who act as gatekeepers to the wider community. A sign of coming times was the fad of brainstorming which threw people with limited knowledge together in a room, and provided a wonderful impression that something was going to eventuate, but was futile, as the process lacked any shared pool of information and any criteria of judgment. Ideas don’t appear out of nothing.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

US and Iran: What is NOT a Smart Policy by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14498/trump-iran-policy

Rooting for President Trump to fail in his policy with Iran means calling for empowering and emboldening a theocratic regime that has consistently threatened “Death to America” — with nukes, presumably, if it had the capability, which it is busy acquiring.

The core revolutionary pillars of this Iranian government are anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. This country, which some people say they would like to see prevail over President Trump, has also been named, several times, the leading executioner of children. It has killed thousands of Americans, including in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, and has committed — and continues to commit — the most unspeakable human rights abuses, including flogging and executing minors….That documentation is just a limited accounting of the horrors it has committed; the list goes on.

During President Obama’s eight-year administration, Obama and Kerry made unprecedented concessions, fully respected the Iranian leaders, lifted sanctions, offered them a fast-track to legitimate deliverable nuclear capability and showered the regime with $150 billion — all in an attempt to appease the ruling mullahs. How did that turn out?

Iran gained legitimacy, directed the billions of dollars to Iran’s military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as Iran’s militias and terror groups, and, through its proxies, has been deepening its foothold in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and strengthening its hold on Hezbollah in Lebanon, Venezuela and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

There are policy analysts, scholars or politicians I have come across who say, “I hope Trump fails.” One area particularly focused on is the president’s policy on Iran. The statement “I hope Trump fails,” however, is not a sound strategy.

Those who hold this view would apparently rather see the country fail than see President Trump do well. Rooting for President Trump to fail in his policy with Iran means calling for empowering and emboldening a theocratic regime that has consistently threatened “Death to America” — with nukes, presumably, if it had the capability, which it is busy acquiring.

The core revolutionary pillars of this Iranian government are anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. This country, which some people say they would like to see prevail over President Trump, has also been named, several times, the leading executioner of children. It has killed thousands of Americans, including in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, and has committed — and continues to commit — the most unspeakable human rights abuses, including flogging and executing minors.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

More Independence Day celebrations: June jobs report up, up, and up! By Ethel C. Fenig

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/07/more_independence_day_celebrations_june_jobs_report_up_up_and_up.html

President Donald J. Trump (R)’s Independence Day celebrations honoring the freedoms of America continued Friday morning as the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its June 2019 jobs report.  It was a definite cause for celebration…but not for Democrats, who strive to keep people dependent on a government ruled by Democrats in secure jobs.  

In dry bureaucratese, the BLS stated:

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — JUNE 2019

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 224,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 3.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in professional and business services, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing. …

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.3 percent), adult women (3.3 percent), teenagers (12.7 percent), Whites (3.3 percent), Blacks (6.0 percent), Asians (2.1 percent), and Hispanics (4.3 percent) showed little or no change in June. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.4 million in June and accounted for 23.7 percent of the unemployed. (See table A-12.)

The labor force participation rate, at 62.9 percent, was little changed over the month and unchanged over the year.  In June, the employment- population ratio was 60.6 percent for the fourth month in a row. (See table A-1.) …

Construction employment continued to trend up in June (+21,000), in line with its average monthly gain over the prior 12 months.

Manufacturing employment edged up in June (+17,000), following 4 months of little change.  So far this year, job growth in the industry has averaged 8,000 per month, compared with an average of 22,000 per month in 2018. In June, employment rose in computer and electronic products (+7,000) and in plastics and rubber products (+4,000).

Employment in other major industries, including mining, wholesale trade, retail trade, information, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and government, showed little change over the month.

In June, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 6 cents to $27.90, following a 9-cent gain in May.  Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.1 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 4 cents to $23.43 in June. (See tables B-3 and B-8.)

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 34.4 hours in June. In manufacturing, the average workweek edged up 0.1 hour to 40.7 hours, while overtime was unchanged at 3.4 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls held at 33.6 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)

In real life, this means that the increase of 224,000 jobs was well above the 165,000 jobs the Labor Department expected.  

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Amazing Deflatable Buttigieg By Christopher Skeet

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/the_amazing_deflatable_buttigieg.html

A scenario unfolded last week that has become boringly predictable.  Bad guy does bad things.  Good guy with authority shows up to stop him.  Bad guy attacks good guy with weapon.  Good guy shoots bad guy.  Bad guy’s “community” allege good guy is racist.  Craven politician holds town hall meeting.  Craven politician gets shouted down by angry mob.  Craven politician folds like wet paper to angry mob’s demands.  Craven politician appoints special prosecutor to investigate good guy, who determines good guy was justified in shooting the bad guy.  Angry mob insists the “system” is rigged against them.  Bad guy’s kindergarten graduation picture circulates Internet.  Bad guy’s relatives give interview explaining how much bad guy had always dreamed of being an astronaut.  Media salivates all over itself.  Other good guys question the sanity of risking their lives to stop bad guys.  Less good guys volunteer to do so.  Crime increases.  Angry mob blames the “system” for neglecting rising crime.  Meanwhile, another bad guy does bad things.  Good guy with authority shows up to stop him.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Okay, only the first half of this scenario has happened so far, but who wants to bet against the second half playing out as predicted?  In this specific biopunk performance, the role of the craven politician who succumbed to the mob of his own creation was none other than America’s Aww Shucks Mayor, Pete Buttigieg.  In his charming hometown of South Bend, Indiana, a white police officer shot a black car burglar Eric Logan who, ignoring the officer’s verbal instructions to halt, came at him with a knife.  In a move he now certainly regrets, Buttigieg took a break from his presidential campaign to return to South Bend to chaperone a grotesque orgy of racist invective, during which was made evident that his constituents have determined the officer’s guilt solely based on his skin color (as well as Logan’s innocence, for the same reason).  There was zero interest in factual evidence, and even less in the presumption of innocence.  Not one to get hung up on such trivialities, Buttigieg made clear from his more passionate ripostes that his sole interest was placating the mob.  Everyone, it’s all my fault.  I might as well have pulled the trigger myself.  I’ll try to do better.  I’m calling in everyone from DOJ to Scotland Yard to come investigate.  The Stasi?  Yeah, I can call them too.  Your wish is my command, but please just stop yelling at me.  (I paraphrase, but that was basically the gist).  From the opening gambit he allowed the inmates to run the asylum, and with every panicked concession he gave, the circling sharks simply grew more frenzied at the scent of blood.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

#Me sorry? Spacey’s accuser drops charges

Posted By on July 5th, 2019

https://www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2019/07/05/kevin-spacey-accuser-drops-lawsuit-against-actor/23763820/

 A young man who says Kevin Spacey groped him in a Nantucket bar in 2016 has dropped his lawsuit against the Oscar-winning actor.

Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer for the man, announced in an email Friday that the suit filed June 26 in Nantucket Superior Court has been voluntarily dismissed. No reason was provided either by Garabedian or in the court filing. Garabedian said he would have no further comment.

An email was left Friday requesting comment from Alan Jackson, Spacey’s attorney.

Garabedian’s client, the son of Boston TV anchor Heather Unruh, alleged Spacey got him drunk and sexually assaulted him at the Club Car restaurant where the then 18-year old man worked.Spacey still faces a criminal charge. He has pleaded not guilty to indecent assault and battery in January.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Delusive Assurance That All Is Well on Campus By Peter Berkowitz –

Posted By on July 5th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/07/05/a_delusive_assurance_that_all_is_well_on_campus_140713.html

For many decades, defenders of liberal education — not only conservatives — have been warning the public about colleges’ and universities’ hostility to free speech. If the warnings are unsound, why has controversy persisted? If they are sound, why hasn’t the problem been corrected?

One tranquilizing possibility explains away the problem: Malcontents there will always be. The boundaries of free speech are inherently uncertain and always fluctuating. Free speech, and debate about free speech’s limits, are welcome on campus. Controversy only persists because of outside agitators ignorant of university culture and determined to extract partisan advantage by misrepresenting campus life to a polarized public.

But the persistence of the criticism is also consistent with an alarming possibility: Universities’ determination to regulate speech and curtail dissent is entrenched on campus; unfree speech is entwined with the structure of university governance; and censorship, both open and covert, serves the interests of the huge and self-reproducing progressive majorities that dominate university administration and the professoriate. Consequently, higher education is exceedingly resistant to reform.

The question is of special concern because all of our other freedoms are bound up with free speech, which enables us to contribute to and learn from public debate, hold officials accountable, and associate with others to advance our private interests and the public good. The security and vigor of free speech depends in turn on the lessons about liberty of thought and discussion taught — both in the classroom and through the norms and rules that constitute the educational enterprise — by our schools, not least institutions of higher education.

The president of Columbia University says not to worry, all is well. In last month’s Atlantic, in an article headlined “Free Speech on Campus Is Doing Just Fine, Thank You,” Lee Bollinger asserts that First Amendment norms are evolving as they have throughout American history. And he offers his assurance, as a free speech scholar as well as a university president, that higher education is standing fast in its commitment to present both sides of the argument. “At Columbia and at thousands of other schools across the United States,” he writes, “controversial ideas are routinely expressed by speakers on both the left and the right, and have been for decades.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

AG Barr Must Stick RICO On Antifa, the 21st Century’s KKK Thomas McArdle

Posted By on July 5th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/03/ag-barr-must-stick-rico-on-antifa-the-21st-centurys-kkk/

On Saturday in Portland, Oregon, freelance journalist Andy Ngo was beaten so badly by a cowardly, masked Antifa mob, he suffered a brain hemorrhage. The weapons included eggs and the spraying of “milk shakes” suspected of including quick-drying cement, which together temporarily blinded Ngo. The local police precinct was within view, yet video of the episode shows no intervention.

Covering your face to avoid identification so you can beat and intimidate in the name of your political agenda and avoid arrest and prosecution – sound familiar? It’s practically the definition of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Nearly 50 years ago, a Democratic Congress passed and a Republican president signed into law an extraordinary measure designed to make prosecutions stick and put organized criminal organizations such as the Klan and the Mafia in prison: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

RICO and Antifa are a match made in heaven.

The glaring similarity between the KKK and these Leninist criminals who practice the same tactics is no revelation to the left. In the far-left Mother Jones, of all places, nearly two years ago an article appeared entitled “Wearing Masks at Protests Didn’t Start With the Far Left – A brief primer on a controversial tactic.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Intellectual Dark Web’s Quiet Revolution By Nate Hochman

Posted By on July 5th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/intellectual-dark-web-quiet-revolution/

A group of mostly young writers challenge the Left’s excesses.

The dominant assumption in conservative circles is that college campuses are left-wing echo chambers with little room for dissenting opinion. But this assumption misses a host of previously apolitical or liberal college students who are voluntarily seeking out conservative thought as an alternative to the contemporary liberal-arts curriculum.

The leading figures of this movement, known colloquially as the Intellectual Dark Web, are a loose assortment of young intellectuals who have gained notoriety for articulating opposition to some aspect of what they see as the porous narratives of identity politics, The IDW has become an industry of sorts — Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Joe Rogan are wildly popular — and it is leading something of a quiet grassroots insurgency against campus intelligentsia throughout America. As a collective, the IDW provides college students with an alternative to the intersectional narrative that is the foundation of the contemporary progressive belief system. Identity politics is not gospel, they say, and it is not mandatory to accept its premises as unquestionable truth. To be sure, so far there is no readily available evidence that demonstrates the ubiquity of this movement, but the explosive popularity of many IDW members — particularly among young people — makes it difficult to conclude that their influence is not significant.

At first glance, it may be difficult to identify any uniform ideological trait they all share. The IDW contains religious conservatives and liberal atheists alike; its diverse cohort includes traditionalists, rationalist liberals, gay comedians, libertarian potheads, and others. Jonah Goldberg wrote last year that members of the IDW are unified only by their objection to the corrosive dogmas of trendy discourse and by the fact that they have all provoked the ire of those who espouse them.

Yet this new class of intellectuals serves for many as the new gatekeeper to the Right. Through them, many college students — myself included — have found their way to Edmund Burke. And to the convert whose access to the conservative tradition came through this cohort of thinkers, it is no coincidence that, despite the variety of political beliefs espoused by individual members of the IDW, they often lead many of their followers to a more traditionalist conservatism.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Georgetown Professor Equates American Flag With Nazi Swastikas By Susanna Hoffman

Posted By on July 5th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/05/georgetown-professor-equates-american-flag-nazi-swastikas/

On MSNBC Wednesday, Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson equated the American flag to Nazi swastikas and Klu Klux Klan cross-burning.

“Those symbols are symbols of hate,” Dyson said.

MSNBC host Hallie Jackson interviewed Dyson in light of the controversy ignited by Nike’s terminated shoe design featuring the American Betsy Ross flag in response to protests by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Addressing the argument that Nike’s decision was “PC [political correctness] culture run amok,” Jackson asked Dyson to articulate why the American flag is so offensive to some.

“Why don’t we wear a swastika for July 4th?” Dyson said. “Because, I don’t know, it makes a difference. The cross burning on somebody’s lawn. Why don’t we just have a Nike celebration of the cross, those symbols are symbols of hate. So we can take PC culture back.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Longest Economic Expansion in U.S. History: Trump Economy Adds Another 224,000 Jobs By Brian Min

Posted By on July 5th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/longest-economic-expansion-in-u-s-history-trump-economy-adds-another-224000-jobs/

The news release by the U.S. Department of Labor today was important not only because it showed an improving job market, but also because it confirmed that the U.S. has officially entered the longest recorded economic expansion in U.S. history.

The U.S. economy made significant gains in June as employment increased by 224,000 and the unemployment rate remained largely unchanged at 3.7 percent.

These payroll growth numbers have been the best gain since January and ran contrary to worries that both the employment picture and overall growth picture were beginning to worsen. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal originally expected the economy to only add 165,000 jobs in June.

The most notable gains occurred in professional and business services, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing.

June marked the tenth anniversary of the official end of the Great Recession in June 2009. In July, the U.S. entered the 121st month of economic expansion arising out of the financial crisis.