WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How North Korea’s Economy Defies Sanctions Indicators show day-to-day commerce in the country has remained resilient, rice prices are stable and gasoline prices have eased By Eun-Young Jeong and Dasl Yoon

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sanctions-were-supposed-to-cripple-north-koreas-economy-theyre-not-working-11551116032

The U.S. has been leading a world-wide campaign to pressure North Korea into giving up its nuclear arsenal through an increasingly stringent sanctions regime. Available evidence suggests it’s not working.

Economic indicators show day-to-day commerce in the country has remained resilient. And many residents, having lived through much harsher conditions in the 1990s, appear to be adapting as market forces take deeper root, according to three dozen defectors, humanitarian workers, government officials and other visitors interviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The lack of impact is making things tricky for Donald Trump as he heads to this week’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi. The U.S. wants Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear weapons and missile programs while the two sides continue far-reaching talks on denuclearization.

Tougher sanctions, including new restrictions on foreign trade approved in 2016 and 2017, have caused North Korea some pain, depriving the regime and elites of revenue from commerce with other countries, including China.

In other ways, North Korea’s economy appears to be holding up well. Rice prices have remained stable, and gasoline prices, which rose after sanctions were tightened, have fallen significantly from highs in the fall of 2017.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

In France, Popular Support for Yellow Vests Cools Off Decline in public backing for protest movement comes amid infighting and President Macron’s improving approval ratings By Noemie Bisserbe

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-france-popular-support-for-yellow-vests-cools-off-11551124011

The French public has begun to turn against the yellow-vest movement, according to a new poll, in a fresh sign of relief for President Emmanuel Macron.

The yellow-vest demonstrations began in November to protest proposed increases in fuel taxes before quickly becoming a rallying cry against Mr. Macron and his pro-business agenda. The yellow vests, or “gilets jaunes,” named after the reflective safety vests worn by participants, initially won the support of more than three quarters of the population, who backed some of the protesters’ many demands.

But on Monday Odoxa, an independent French polling agency, published a poll in which 55% of the 1,004 people surveyed said they wanted the protests to stop. That is the first time since the start of the movement that a clear majority has opposed the protesters. The poll was conducted online on Feb. 20 and Feb. 21.

In an Oxoda poll last month, 49% of respondents reported wanting demonstrations to end.

POLITICS Comments turned off

UK Labor Party’s Defections Over Anti-Semitism Toll Warning Bell For U.S. Democrats Given the recent incidents of anti-Semitism on the American left, the UK Labour Party’s collapse invites examination—and may offer a warning to the American Democrat Party. By Erielle Davidson

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/25/uk-labor-partys-defections-anti-semitism-toll-warning-bell-u-s-democrats/

The United Kingdom’s Labour Party is bleeding, and seem to have little idea of how to cauterize the wound. This past week, nine members of British Parliament resigned from the party in protest, eight citing anti-Semitism as one of their chief concerns. Given the recent incidents of anti-Semitism on the American left, the UK Labour Party’s plodding collapse invites examination—and offers perhaps a grim warning to the American Democrat Party, which faces its own recent accusations of anti-Semitism.

Labour’s general secretary, Jennie Formby, disclosed that the party had received more than 650 complaints of anti-Semitism by its members since last April. Almost 100 members were suspended, and a dozen expelled.

Luciana Berger, one of the Labour Party’s most prominent Jewish MPs, stated in her resignation, “I cannot remain in a party that I have today come to the sickening conclusion is institutionally anti-Semitic…The leadership has willfully and repeatedly failed to address hatred against Jewish people within its ranks.” Berger’s resignation sent ripples within the national Labour contingency, given her small constituency in Liverpool had voted unwaveringly for the Labour Party for the entirety of its two-decade existence.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Is the End Game for the Never Trumpers? Melissa Mackenzie

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

https://spectator.org/jonah-goldbergs-answer-

EXCERPT”Why does opposing Trump mean that one must be nasty to Trump’s more respected and erudite defenders? What purpose is there, for example, in trying to destroy Victor Davis Hansen? When Trump gets out of office (and it will happen, if not by the glorious swan dive of impeachment or by rotting away his dotage in prison as the Never Trump wing hope), how will attempting to destroy someone personally influence the post-Trump party? What place will the most vociferous anti-Trumpers have once they’ve alienated everyone with whom they disagree?Many members of Trump’s base are disappointed in the Wall funding and building, a point the Never Trumpers find endlessly mirthful.

Yet, do any of the Never Trump crew give a rat’s fanny about the Wall? Most use the policy to poke fun at Trump’s forlorn and most devoted followers. Their language around the Wall has been nigh unto open-borders blather (to own Trump). But is that policy position conservative? Libertarian, maybe. Reaganite? Not really.

Ninety percent of the GOP support Donald Trump. They’re happy, for once, to have someone respond to the media and not allow their worldview to be the butt of every joke, and that be the last word. The feeling among these folks, though, is that the conservative thought leaders, NRO and Weekly Standard writers among them, of the center-right coalition laughed along with Obama when he made fun of bitter-clingers and tea baggers. These True Cons™ agreed with Hillary that those people are deplorable.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Stop Earning the ‘Enemy of the People’ Label By Steve Cortes

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/02/25/stop_earning_the_enemy_of_the_people_label_139569.html
Media figures regularly shriek in protest whenever President Trump besmirches the press as “the enemy of the people.” The phrase is jarring, no doubt. But here’s an idea: The leaders in the Fourth Estate should quit behaving in ways that lend credence to the president’s caustic complaint. Just this past Friday, three at MSNBC, the Daily Beast, and HBO proved themselves fully deserving of Trump’s denunciation.

First, Michael Steele, a regular MSNBC contributor and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, appeared on that network with host Nicole Wallace, former communications director for George W. Bush. These two erstwhile conservative commentators prove that the cable news lights shine brightly for establishment Republicans willing to devote their professional lives to deranged disparagement of a president with the most conservative record since Ronald Reagan.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Love him or hate him, Trump is right about North Korea Image Joel Mathis

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

https://theweek.com/articles/825598/love-hate-trump-right-about-north-korea

President Trump is doing the right thing in pursuing peace with North Korea.

It feels odd to type those words, and you probably will not hear them repeated by members of America’s foreign policy establishment over the next few days, as Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam. A lot of smart people — including Trump’s own aides — fear the president will do anything to proclaim the summit a success, even if it means trumpeting an agreement that somehow lets Kim keep his tiny nuclear arsenal largely intact.

They are right: That is a likely outcome — it is what happened, in fact, the first time Trump met Kim. But that’s OK. Because not going to war with North Korea is better than going to war with North Korea. And Trump’s strategy with regards to Kim, whatever its faults, makes war with that country less likely.

For more than a generation, American policy toward North Korea has been aimed mostly at keeping that country from obtaining or keeping a nuclear arsenal. That mission failed in 2006, and American presidents have been scrambling ever since to obtain denuclearization. That goal has never been achieved, and there is no reason to believe it ever will be.

No, it is not good that Kim has nuclear weapons at his disposal: The more such weapons that exist in the world, the more likely it is that one will be used — and that would be a disaster. But it is unlikely the United States can ever convince Kim to give up his weapons because he has one very important incentive to keep them: his personal and political survival. (As if to emphasize the point, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio this weekend posted a picture of a bloodied Muammar Gaddafi to Twitter — a warning to Venezuela’s leaders during that country’s crisis, but no doubt also a reminder to Kim that giving up a nuclear program can make a leader more vulnerable to his rivals, internal or external.)

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: ABOUT THE OSCARS

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

From my favorite Australian Journal- Quadrant

“Hollywood will convene on Monday morning (Australian time) to hand out Oscars, congratulate itself for being so very wonderful and, inevitably, let the world know the extent to which cocaine-snorting, self-absorbed leftoid libertines disapprove of President Donald Trump. Last year, the top award went to a movie, The Shape of Water, that told the story of a young woman who conjugated the horizontal with a bipedal fish, so it’s anyone’s guess what might tickle Tinseltown’s fancy this year.”

My sentiments exactly. So I skipped the event and went to Birdland to hear the Emilio Solla Tango Jazz Band- with piano, bass, reeds, brass,percussion and even an accordion. The joint was jumping. rsk

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Mars Dreaming by Joe Dolce

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/01-02/mars-dreaming/

For a dead and apparently lifeless planet, Mars certainly gets more that its share of attention. From HG Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs to Ron Howard and, most recently, Sean Penn, the distant red orb has proven irresistible to any and all with more than an ounce of imagination.

Since the publication of The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells in 1897, popular imagination has been drawn to the idea of humans travelling to, and colonising, the planet Mars. Every decade new books and films are released exploring scenarios about whether life exists or ever existed on Mars, whether Martians would be benign or hostile, and whether the planet could sustain human life, should we be able to figure out a way to get there and settle. Although we have landed men on the moon, that journey was a mere 384,000 kilometres from Earth, whereas Mars is 54.6 million kilometres away.

The latest Mars dreaming is the eight-episode series created by the British television network Channel 4, and US streaming service Hulu, The First, starring Sean Penn. It was created by Beau Willimon, the writer-producer behind the American adaptation of the BBC’s House of Cards.

The drama in the premiere season of The First takes place in the not-too-distant future and focuses on the astronauts, their families, and the ground crew, rather on the flight or the experiences on Mars. Rob Thomas, of the Capital Times, wrote:

Beau Willimon seems to be atoning for House of Cards with his new Hulu series The First. Whereas Netflix’s first big hit often focused on the worst about humanity—not just evil but ambition, greed and weakness—his new show, The First, reminds us of the best about us.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Yes, ‘This Is America, 2019’ By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/24/yes

There have been so far about three general reactions to the concocted Jussie Smollett psychodrama.One, and the most common, has been apprehension that Smollett’s lies will discredit future real incidents of hate crimes against gays and minorities. This could be a legitimate concern, given the tensions within a multiracial society.Yet, in fact, there is no evidence in the past that false reports (some lists of such fake hate crimes put the number at around 400) have had such an effect—either on spiking real hate crimes, suppressing reporting, discouraging police investigations, or preventing even more race-crime hoaxes.

As Heather Mac Donald has recently once again noted, the 2017 upswing in reported hate crimes from the prior year may well be largely because an additional 1,000 police agencies were for the first time reporting such crimes. Mac Donald also notes that a “hate crime”—a micro percentage of reported violent crime—is narrowly defined not to include general interracial violent victimization, a category in which African-Americans on average commit 85 percent of such crimes.From Tawana Brawley to the Covington kids, fictive accounts of race-based bias and violence have not stopped purported victims from believing that they, too, could invent such incidents and win credibility—to say nothing of profitable attention. After all, the publicity of the Duke Lacrosse or Covington hoaxes did not suggest to Jussie Smollett that he would not be found credible. In fact, the opposite may be true. The more we hear of fake hate crimes, the more we will likely hear of future fake hate crimes.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The University of Diversity Is Destroying America By Edward Ring

Posted By on February 25th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/25/the-university-of-diversity

America’s educational system is breaking, and the primary culprits are the diversity bureaucracy, now an industrial strength special-interest group that grows more powerful and more expansive every year. For years they have dominated America’s social sciences and humanities, and now they’re launching an assault on the hard sciences. If they are not stopped, they eventually will destroy America as a first-world democracy.They’re well on their way. But it isn’t “racism”—the currency of the diversocrats—that is denying opportunities to “people of color.” It is failures in the social culture of the inner cities, even more than aggregate economic disadvantages, or the lousy, unionized public schools, that result in the chronic academic underachievement of their children.

There’s no money to be made, or votes to be had, however, in telling this tough truth, even though it might do a lot of good if enough people said it or heard it. The commitment to “diversity” in American university enrollment is absolute and all-powerful, despite the incessant barrage of lavishly funded charges to the contrary emanating from the grievance industry. To achieve diversity, university admissions offices strive to achieve proportional representation by race, and to do that, they downgrade the significance of the single most predictive indicator of academic potential, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).