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40 years later, Iran needs another revolution By Lawrence J. Haas

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/429600-40-years-later-iran-needs-another-revolution
Iran’s threats to America’s global interests are mounting as the Islamic Republic celebrates its 40th anniversary, and these threats mock repeated U.S. efforts over the years to appease a dangerous regime.

Tehran is developing longer range and more sophisticated missiles that can reach U.S. and Israeli targets; building weapons factories in Syria in hopes of establishing a permanent military presence near Israel; investing growing sums to fund, train, and direct terrorist operations; and cracking down ever more harshly at home as opposition to the odious regime continues on multiple fronts.

These developments remind us (if, alas, anyone needs reminding) that a regime that was born from the fires of a theocratic revolution in 1979 maintains its foundational fervor; that its ambitions extend far beyond its borders; that the United States and its allies would be better advised to ramp up the political and economic pressure on the regime rather than launch more misguided efforts to coax it to moderation; and that the West should put its moral voice behind the long-suffering Iranian people.

“[T]he hardliners are still very much in control of Iran,” former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the Arab TV network Al Arabiya, “and I think we in the West tend to view this sometimes very naively. We think of Iran as a state with an ideology, but actually Iran really is an ideology with a state.”

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When Green is Red by Peter Smith

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019

Don’t be fooled, the urgent need to combat climate change, as cited by the Green New Deal, is nothing more nor less than a trojan horse, inside of which lurks Comrade Marx. A utopian paradise for all is its promise — utopian as in Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba and Chávez’s Venezuela.

ROOSEVELT‘s New Deal managed to delay America’s recovery from the Great Depression for years after the UK, Europe and Australia had recovered. This is a mere blip on the course of history compared with the dystopian future offered by the Green New Deal.

Backdropped by older white men of privilege, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) announced her Green New Deal (the Deal) in Washington; in the form of a proposed fourteen-page House of Reps resolution. Presumably the men were props calculated to give the impression that the madness had a kernel of sanity. After all, could middle- and older-aged white men sign up to flights of fancy? Well, yes, they can. Think of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.

Before I cover some of the elements of the Deal a note of caution is warranted. I heard some conservatives and a few level-headed Democrats say that it was pie-in-the-sky. It isn’t. Pie-in-the-sky is an empty promise of unattainable benefits; writ large, it is a utopian promise of nirvana right here on planet Earth.

The Deal is not a pie-in-the-sky promise but a concrete threat of a future hellhole. And, as we know, unlike nirvanas, hellholes have been regularly brought about. This particular one, as for so many, would be a product of socialism. Don’t be fooled, climate change in the Deal is simply a trojan horse. Inside lurks comrade Karl Marx.

Certainty of climate catastrophe of biblical proportions sets the scene: mass migrant flight, enormous economic losses, wildfires such as we haven’t seen, ninety-nine percent of coral reefs gone, more than 350 million people “exposed to deadly heat stress.” And on top of all of this, rising sea levels, severe storms, and droughts, etc., etc.

If this were not enough on the climate front; on the socio-economic front, inequality and discrimination bear down on swathes of the populace. Suffering are “indigenous people, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialised communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.” Who’s left, you might ask? Obviously, those left are privileged white men – hence I suppose those aforementioned privileged white men hovering behind AOC lest they be among those for the guillotine come the witching hour.

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Britain spending less on defence than France and India as budget cuts push it down global table Jack Maidment

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/12/britain-now-spends-less

Britain now ranks seventh in a league table of the world’s biggest defence spenders, below India and France, after budget cuts.

Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, said in a speech on Monday that the UK was a “nation with the world’s fifth biggest defence budget”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/12/britain-now-spends-less-defence-france-india-ranks-seventh-global/

Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showed that while the UK ranked fifth in 2015, spending $55 billion, it has subsequently fallen to seventh in 2016 and 2017.

In 2017 the UK’s military expenditure stood at just over $47 billion.

Defence sources said there were a number of different league tables for defence spending which used different criteria and methodology which meant there was not one definitive ranking.

The United States remained top of the SIPRI league table for military spending in 2017, with its $610 billion outlay almost three times the $228 billion spent by second-placed China.

US military spending represented more than a third of the world’s total spend on defence in 2017.

Saudi Arabia ranked third with Russia in fourth, India in fifth, France in sixth and the UK in seventh.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum Crime and punishment, Israeli-style What is it about a murder committed by a terrorist that differentiates it in the Israeli mindset from one perpetrated by a “regular” criminal?

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.jns.org/opinion/crime-and-punishment-israeli-style/

The debate over capital punishment for terrorists arose again in Israel after the body of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher was discovered in a forest on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and her killer, 29-year-old Arafat Irfaiya, confessed to sexually assaulting and stabbing her to death.

Although it took Israeli police and security services two full days to confirm that the brutal murder was an act of terrorism, the public knew the truth. This was not merely because of false rumors rampant on social media that Ansbacher had been decapitated, ISIS-style. The real reason that Israelis understood the nature of the slaying was due, sadly, to experience.

Furthermore, it turned out that Irfaiya, a Palestinian Hamas supporter from Hebron, had been detained twice in the past for terror-related activities. To top it all off, he told his interrogators that he had come to Jerusalem with a knife with the intention of killing a Jew and becoming a shahid–a “martyr” for Allah. He said that though he had not thought through how he was going to accomplish this, he happened upon Ansbacher, who was sitting by herself on a bench, and jumped on the opportunity.

Literally.

Following Irfaiya’s arrest, Israelis flooded Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square to demand that he and other convicted terrorists be given the death penalty, which exists in Israeli law, but has only been implemented once in the country’s history. In 1962, Nazi architect Adolf Eichmann was executed after a long trial, during which one after another of his victims testified about the horrors they were forced to endure at his hands in Europe as part of Hitler’s “final solution.”

BOOKS, EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Campus Intellectual Diversity Act: A Proposal By Stanley Kurtz ****

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-campus-intellectual-diversity-act-a-proposal/

America’s colleges and universities lack intellectual diversity. Knowledge advances through debate, yet our universities are dominated by an intellectual monoculture, while public-policy debates common to society at large are scarcely to be found in the halls of the academy.

This problem can be addressed in a way that respects academic freedom. Colleges help prepare students for citizenship, in part by exposing them to outside speakers, panel discussions, and debates that explore the public-policy disputes of the day. Action can be taken to ensure that our universities allow students to consider a wide range of perspectives on controversial public issues, without interfering with the classroom. This will not only advance knowledge; it will shore up our tenuous civil peace in an era when America’s sense of shared nationhood is threatened by political polarization.

Alarming campus shout-downs of visiting speakers are part of a broader problem. The real targets of those shout-downs are not the speakers, who leave campus and go on with their own lives, but the faculty and students who remain. The shouters implicitly say, “If we can silence this visiting speaker, think what we can do to you if you get out of line.” The result is a campus culture of self-censorship in which controversy is avoided and debate disappears. Shout-downs both reflect and reinforce the underlying intellectual monoculture. Restoring a culture of respectful discussion and debate will thus bolster civility, safeguard liberty, strengthen citizenship, and deepen knowledge.

The proposal I present here expands upon an idea first suggested by George La Noue, professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. La Noue develops this idea and presents the research behind it in his forthcoming book with Carolina Academic Press, Silenced Stages: The Loss of Academic Freedom and Campus Policy Debates.

While the model legislation I present here can be applied by state legislatures to public university systems, it is also perfectly possible for college or university trustees at public or private institutions to adopt this proposal on their own.

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McConnell: Senate to Vote on Green New Deal So Lawmakers Can ‘Go on Record’ By Jack Crowe

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mcconnell-senate-will-vote-on-green-new-deal-so-all-lawmakers-can-go-on-record/

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Tuesday that the Senate will vote on the Green New Deal resolution introduced last week by a coalition of progressive lawmakers vowing to eliminate all greenhouse-gas emissions within ten years, while simultaneously creating millions of jobs in a government-subsidized green-energy sector.

“I’ve noted with great interest the Green New Deal. And we’re going to be voting on that in the Senate. Give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal,” McConnell said with a sly smile during a Tuesday press conference.

The resolution, which was introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Senator Ed Markey (D., Mass.) on Friday, provides a sweeping list of climate-change- and social-justice-related measures including the refurbishing of every structure in the country with renewable-energy technology and the creation of millions of federally funded jobs in the green-energy sector.

A “frequently asked questions” document that accompanied the resolution referenced the complete elimination of air travel and farting cows. Ocasio-Cortez has since disavowed the FAQ, which was posted on her website, and suggested her political enemies disseminated the document to sabotage the proposal.

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Massive oil and gas reserves found off South African coast a ‘game-changer’ By Rick Moran

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/massive_oil_and_gas_reserves_found_off_south_african_coast_a_game_changer.html

But will the radical-Left government allow for the full development of the find?

While many of the world’s industrial powers are looking for ways to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels, a fabulous oil discovery off the coast of South Africa promises to alter the energy future of the continent.

French state oil company Total led a consortium of companies that had been exploring off the coast of South Africa for several years. Their find has excited the entire oil industry and promises to further reduce the influence of OPEC and other big energy-producers.

ZeroHedge:

“With this discovery, Total has opened a new world-class gas and oil play and is well positioned to test several follow-on prospects on the same block,” said Kevin McLachlan, Senior Vice President Exploration at Total.

According to Total’s chief executive Patrick Pouyanne, the discovery could hold 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent of gas and condensate resources.

South Africa still imports much of its oil and gas, which makes this one find a potential game-changer for them.

South Africa is currently working on new legislation that would separate the conditions for exploring and exploiting oil and gas resources from those for traditional minerals.

Commenting on Total’s discovery, Andrew Latham, vice president, global exploration at natural resources consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said:

“Even though the well isn’t an oil discovery, if Brulpadda proves to be anywhere near as big as the estimates of up to 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent resources, it will still be a game-changer for South Africa.”

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China Talks With Venezuela Opposition to Protect Investments Chinese diplomats discuss debt, oil projects with Guaidó camp as pressure mounts against ally Maduro By Kejal Vyas

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-holds-talks-with-venezuelan-opposition-on-debt-oil-projects-11549993261

China has been holding talks with Venezuela’s political opposition to safeguard its investments in the troubled Latin American nation, hedging its bets as pressure builds on Nicolás Maduro, the embattled leader for whom Beijing has been a vital ally.

Chinese diplomats, worried over the future of its oil projects in Venezuela and nearly $20 billion that Caracas owes Beijing, have held debt negotiations in Washington in recent weeks with representatives of Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader heading the U.S.-backed efforts to oust Mr. Maduro, according to people familiar with the talks.

“China recognizes the increasing risk of a regime change and does not want to be on the bad side of a new regime,” said R. Evan Ellis, an expert on Chinese relations in Latin America at the U.S. Army War College. “While they prefer stability, they realize they have to put eggs in the other basket.”

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Canadian Minister Steps Down Amid Political Uproar Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suffers setback as minister at center of brewing controversy resigns 0 Comments By Paul Vieira and Kim Mackrael

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/canadian-minister-steps-down-amid-ethics-probe-11549992251

The biggest political storm of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s term in office escalated on Tuesday with the resignation of the cabinet minister at the center of allegations that his office interfered in a criminal case.

Jody Wilson-Raybould, who until last month was Canada’s justice minister, said she was tendering her resignation “with a heavy heart” from her post as veterans-affairs minister, in a statement released on her Twitter account. Her surprise decision, for which she gave no further explanation, is the latest development in a political uproar coming just months before Mr. Trudeau hits the campaign trail to seek re-election.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould has declined to comment for nearly a week since allegations emerged that officials in Mr. Trudeau’s office tried last year to persuade her as justice minister to drop a criminal prosecution and cut a plea deal with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., a Montreal engineering company facing bribery-and-fraud charges. She had invoked solicitor-client privilege as a reason why she couldn’t discuss the matter further, given her previous role as the Canadian cabinet’s legal adviser.

Mr. Trudeau and other government officials have vehemently denied the allegations, first revealed in a report by Toronto’s Globe and Mail.

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Marc Lamont Hill To Speak at Fundraiser for Group Whose Leaders Aided Hamas By Hesham Shehab

Posted By on February 12th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/marc-lamont-hill-to-speak-at-fundraiser-for-group-whose-leaders-aided-hamas/

In March, recently fired CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill will be the keynote speaker for a Chicago-based group the Israeli government recently declared to be “terrorists in suits.”

Hill, who was fired by CNN following a speech at the United Nations where he used the anti-Israel eliminationist rhetoric “from the river to the sea,” will speak at a fundraising event for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). Founded in 2005, AMP promotes extreme anti-Israel views and has provided a platform for anti-Semitism. The organization seeks to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state, and plays a leading role in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the United States. AMP campaigns have depicted Israel as an apartheid state and have called for an end to American aid to Israel.

A report published by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs just this month noted that leaders and senior members of AMP were involved, directly and indirectly, in providing funding assistance to Hamas.

The report added that the funding activity took place through the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), an organization the U.S. government alleges was set up to provide propaganda services for Hamas. Formerly the largest Islamic charity in the United States, HLF and five of its directors were convicted of multiple terrorism-related charges, including material support for terror.

The report concluded that leading figures in HLF and IAP subsequently joined AMP, and now hold senior positions in the organization.