MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Continues Its Slow Suicide By Julie Kelly

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/17/media

After reviewing last week’s news coverage, I would encourage President Trump to come up with a more accurate taunt than “fake news.” Maybe “garbage news.” Or perhaps “bottom-feeding news.” Even try “we-are-a-collection-of-dishonest-miscreants-who-are-unworthy-of-an-ounce-of-the-American-people’s-trust news.”

But “fake news” is tame in light of the media’s misleading, destructive, and willfully ignorant reporting last week that was intended further to inflame a divided body politic.

Some of the lowlights featured MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough, claiming Trump has done more damage to the country than the 9/11 terrorists; the editorial board of a major newspaper blaming Trump for Hurricane Florence; the wholesale acceptance of a highly flawed paper about hurricane deaths used to bash the president; and a despicable crusade not just to quash Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, but to destroy his reputation and damage his young family.

And it wasn’t just the dependable lunatics on the Left pushing trash commentary. Bret Stephens, the NeverTrump “conservative” columnist for the New York Times, compared Trump to a drug addict. Washington Post “conservative” blogger Jennifer Rubin warned that if Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted to confirm Kavanaugh, their names would be, “as was the case with [Nazi-era traitor] Vidkun Quisling—synonymous with ‘sellouts,’ ‘collaborators,’ or, to use a Trumpism, ‘phonies.’”

As the week came to a close, the New York Times was forced to append its misleading article that criticized U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for buying pricey curtains to decorate her official residence. The window coverings, it turns out, actually were purchased by her predecessor in the Obama Administration. But it was too late. Social media had pounded Haley all morning for being extravagant and heartless.

Disgraceful.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trump and Bolton Take On the International Criminal Court By John Fonte

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/18/trump-and-bolton

Twenty years ago—the night of July 17-18, 1998 at the United Nations conference in Rome establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), to be exact—an American amendment to restrict the role of this new supranational global court had just been overwhelmingly defeated. An observer remarked, “the delegates burst into a spontaneous standing ovation which turned into a rhythmic applause that lasted close to 10 minutes.”

From the delegations of the European Union and from human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and a group now called Human Rights First (all of whom were staffed with many American citizens) came wild cheers and applause throughout the night, as the Rome conference rejected a series of amendments proposed by the United States to place checks on the court.

Nineteen years later in November 2017, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda officially requested permission from the court’s pre-trial chamber to proceed, for the first time, to investigate U.S. soldiers and officials for alleged “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” in Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch praised the ICC move as a “potential, if long-time overdue, path to justice.” Amnesty International lauded the global prosecutor’s request as “a seminal moment for international justice.”

On September 10, at a Federalist Society luncheon, National Security Advisor John Bolton, speaking for President Trump, responded: “This administration will fight back to protect American constitutionalism, our sovereignty, and our citizens.”

Bolton’s speech was both hard-hitting and highly principled. Rich in historical and constitutional detail, the speech examines the actions of the International Criminal Court in the context of the core principles of American constitutional democracy and the principle that the only legitimate government is government by the consent of the governed. The speech was a tour de force that should be used in classrooms as a clear example of our constitutional morality and democratic sovereignty in action.

Shocked, Appalled, and Principle-Free
Critics immediately launched attacks on Bolton’s speech, but they never responded to his principled arguments in defense of democratic self-government. A hysterical headline on the front page of the New York Times declared “On War Crimes Court, U.S. Sides with Despots, Not Allies.” Human Rights First issued a short statement that Bolton’s announcement was “reactionary fear-mongering.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

A New Academic Year at America’s Colleges Let the race-hustling and gender-dysphoric madness begin! Jack Kerwick

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271354/new-academic-year-americas-colleges-jack-kerwick

A new academic year is upon us and, already, the world of Higher Education is being true to form.

For example, the University of Maryland-College Park created a new “diversity” group intended to carve out a “safe space” for those white students who are interested in sharing their reflections on their encounters with “racial and ethnic minorities.”

The school assigned to the group quite the catchy label: “White Awake.”

According to Campus Reform, a watchdog site, this “support group” will assist white students who “sometimes feel uncomfortable and confused before, during, or after interactions with racial and ethnic minorities.”

According to the description: “This group offers a safe space for White students to explore their experiences, questions, reactions, and feelings. Members will support and share feedback with each other as they learn more about themselves and how they can fit into a diverse world.”

After Campus Reform published its article on “White Awake,” the University of Maryland decided to change the name of its most recently created “diversity group.” “White Awake” is no more. In its place is the “Anti-Racism and Ally Building Group.” The description reads: “Do you want to improve your ability to relate to and connect with people different from yourself? Do you want to become a better ally? Members will support and share feedback with each other as they learn more about themselves and how they can fit into a diverse world.”

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, SJ Miller, a “faculty associate” who, in spite of being a teacher, is not recognized as a “professor,” wants to “liberate gender identity.” Self-identifying as “agender,” Miller expressed desire for this objective in a paper—“Reframing Schooling to Liberate Gender Identity”—that he had published in a journal known as Multicultural Perspectives.

HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Sanctuary Policies Protect Sex Offenders Victims are mere “speed bumps” on the road to anarchy. Michael Cutler

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271333/sanctuary-policies-protect-sex-offenders-michael-cutler
On September 12, 2018 the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release, ICE arrests 16 during 2-day Operation SOAR in the New York City metropolitan area.

Here is an excerpt from that press release:

In years past, most of these individuals would have been turned over to ICE by local authorities upon their release from jail based on ICE detainers. Now that many sanctuary cities, including New York City, do not honor ICE detainers, these individuals, who often have significant criminal histories, are released onto the street, presenting a potential public safety threat.

“Many of those arrested in this operation had been found guilty of inappropriate sexual behavior against a minor,” said Thomas R. Decker, field office director for ERO New York. “Our communities are safer, our children are safer, from the efforts of the men and women of ICE. We have removed them from our city’s streets and we will seek to remove them from the United States.”

Arrests include:

In the Bronx, a 53 year-old, Mexican national, released from NYPD custody with an active detainer, who has convictions for criminal possession of a loaded firearm; criminal possession of a weapon: defaced for concealment; and sexual misconduct: male has intercourse with a female without her consent;
In Manhattan, a 42 year-old previously removed Salvadoran national, who has a conviction for sexual abuse of a child less than 11 years of age;
In Maspeth, a 39 year-old Dominican national, who has a conviction for sexual abuse, and is a registered sexual offender;
In Wyandanch, a 32 year-old Guatemalan national, who has a conviction for course of sexual conduct against a child less than 13 years of age;
In Huntington Station, a 40 year-old previously removed Salvadoran national, who has a conviction for rape, and who has failed to register as a sexual offender;
In Deer Park, a 54 year-old Italian national, who has a conviction for possession of sexual performance by child less than 16 years of age;
In the Bronx, a 42 year-old Ghanaian national, who has a conviction for sexual contact with an individual greater than 17 incapable of giving consent;

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Playing Hardball with Hungary The EU’s disgraceful attempt to bring PM Orban to heel. Bruce Bawer

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271349/playing-hardball-hungary-bruce-bawer

Criticize the government of Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary since 2010, all you like. But the European Union’s despotic and disgraceful attempt to bring him to heel, which came to a head with a vote in the European Parliament on September 12, has nothing whatsoever to do with the purported “erosion of democracy” in his country.

First, let it be said that the vote itself was a result of a report by Judith Sargentini, a Dutch MEP who belongs to her country’s GreenLeft Party. In the report, Sargentini accused Hungary of “a serious breach…of the values on which the Union is founded,” namely “the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.” She proceeded to reel off dozens of complaints about the way things work in Hungary.

For example: “Patriarchal stereotyped attitudes still prevail in Hungary with respect to the position of women in society.” (Well, yes, compared to the Netherlands.) She accused Hungarian authorities of prejudice against Roma, or gypsies, because an inordinate percentage of gypsy children are placed in special-education classes. (She gave no indication of entertaining the possibility that the children in question might actually require such classes.) Another grievance was the domination of Hungary’s media by pro-government voices. (As if you couldn’t say the same thing about the media in much of Western Europe.)

Sargentini also cited Orban’s supposed interference with academic freedom. In fact, when Orban took power, many of Hungary’s universities were so insular and ill-managed that the government had to step in and appoint competent rectors; meanwhile some of the new colleges that sprung up in post-Communist Hungary were shady, unaccredited foreign rackets that required oversight and regulation. Last month, the Hungarian government proposed a ban on gender studies, arguing that they were valueless on the job market. You may regard this either as an inappropriate violation of ivory-tower autonomy or as a sane and practical response to inane developments in higher education.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A New Color of Censorship from the SPLC A hate group sets out to coopt major corporations. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271310/new-color-censorship-splc-daniel-greenfield

Reprinted from Amgreatness.com.

Color of Change, a radical leftist group campaigning to censor conservatives and right-leaning groups, exploited the 2015 Charleston church shooting to go after the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The Freedom Center’s investigations had exposed Color of Change, but the leftist group’s campaign to silence the Center briefly succeeded last month.

“Bloodmoney,” Color of Change’s smear campaign, seeks to shut down the fundraising abilities of conservative organizations by pressuring credit card companies and payment processors to deny access to conservative groups blacklisted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Color of Change falsely accuses all of these groups of promoting violence and white supremacy.

Two weeks ago, the group’s pressure campaign successfully misled Mastercard into refusing to process donations for the Freedom Center, until an outcry forced the company to change course. Though the battle may have been won, Color of Change’s censorship campaign continues.

Color of Change’s “Bloodmoney” campaign is a blood libel. The effort falsely links conservative organizations targeted by the SPLC—including some run by African-Americans and Jews—to the Charleston church shooting and the violence in Charlottesville. The leftist group founded by CNN’s Van Jones and funded by George Soros is out to censor conservative organizations by choking off their fundraising.Color of Change’s blood libel accuses credit card companies and payment processors of taking “blood money” and financing “violence” and of complicity in “white supremacist murders” if they process donations for conservative organizations, including the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

“Financial service companies doing business with white supremacists are profiting from hate,” the campaign alleges.

The truth behind the blood libel is that Color of Change is a racialist partisan group trying to cut off financial services to mainstream conservative groups using shameless lies.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Bolton Speech Underscores Trump Administration Putting America First On The Global Stage The Trump administration is taking stock of agreements and treaties that do not serve American interests first. By Rebeccah Heinrichs

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/09/17/bolton-speech-underscores-trump-administration-putting-america-first-global-stage/

National Security Advisor John Bolton delivered a blockbuster speech at an event hosted by the Federalist Society last Monday, about how monumentally dumb and dangerous the International Criminal Court is for America.

The ICC is a multinational organization established by the Rome Statute. President Bill Clinton signed on to the statute in 2000 but never submitted the international treaty to the Senate. President George W. Bush then unsigned the treaty. President Barack Obama never signed the treaty, but he was friendly to it and cooperated with the ICC.

Bolton made the Trump administration’s position on the ICC ultra-clear in his speech:

The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.

It was a powerful rejection of the court. But that’s not all it rejected, and to singularly focus on the ICC misses larger principles that will surely guide the administration’s decisions about other international agreements. Three principles stood out.
The United States Is Not the Peer of Somalia

First, not all countries are equally bad or equally good; the United States is a force for good and rejects the notion that the United States, just like other nations, must be constrained.

“The largely unspoken, but always central, aim of its most vigorous supporters was to constrain the United States,” Bolton said. “The objective was not limited to targeting individual US service members, but rather America’s senior political leadership, and its relentless determination to keep our country secure.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Kavanaugh and Accuser to Testify Publicly Before Judiciary Committee Monday By Jack Crowe

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/brett-kavanaugh-and-accuser-to-testify-before-judiciary-committee/

““He is somebody very special; at the same time, we want to go through a process, we want to make sure everything is perfect, everything is just right,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “If it takes a little delay, it will take a little delay — it shouldn’t certainly be very much.”

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were high-school students will testify publicly regarding the allegation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the New York Times reported.

The hearing will delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote, which was previously scheduled for Thursday.

“Judge Kavanaugh looks forward to a hearing where he can clear his name of this false allegation. He stands ready to testify tomorrow if the Senate is ready to hear him,” White House spokesman Raj Shah told the Times.

Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley confirmed Monday evening that a public hearing has been scheduled for the following Monday.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

No Surprise: Americans Don’t Like Racial Preferences By Roger Clegg

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/americans-dont-like-racial-preferences-education/

This is not news, being quite in line with many earlier polls, but the time and place are rather propitious, with the Harvard affirmative-action case going to trial in a month. A new survey, by Boston’s public-radio station no less, asked this question: “The Supreme Court has decided colleges can use race as one factor in deciding which applicants to admit. Do you agree or disagree with this ruling?” And 72 percent of those surveyed said they disagreed with the Court’s ruling, with only 24 percent agreeing. (Indeed, the only group that the station identified as having more supporters than critics of the Court’s decision was those with a graduate education, and among them by only 49 to 45 percent. This proves, by the way, that the more time you spend on today’s campuses, the worse your judgment becomes.)

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Lenient Prison Term for ISIS Terrorist Pits Prosecutors Against Federal Judge By Todd Bensman

Posted By on September 18th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/lenient-prison-term-for-isis-terrorist-pits-prosecutors-against-federal-judge/

On September 10, just ahead of this year’s 9/11 anniversary, Texas resident Asher Abid Khan finally turned himself in to the U.S. Marshal’s office in Houston for providing material support to ISIS. He was off to the Federal Correctional Institute known as “Forrest City Medium” in Forrest City, Arkansas, according to court filings.

The 23-year-old University of Houston student had been facing a potential life term in prison when he pleaded guilty to one count related to recruiting fighters for ISIS, including one fellow Texan who died in combat. Instead, he must have felt some relief when, last month, the Ronald Reagan-appointed U.S. District Judge Lyn Hughes gave Khan 18 months.

But Khan can’t be making any long-term plans for his post-prison future.

In a highly unusual turn of events, prosecutors with the U.S. Department of Justice, angry about the perceived leniency of the sentence, have taken the judge’s decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This just doesn’t happen. A Houston Chronicle report established that DOJ’s appeal of Judge Hughes’ sentence was a first involving ISIS cases. (More on the eccentric Judge Hughes in a bit).

The outcome of the coming bout will have consequences for the government’s ability to punish and deter future homegrown terrorists like Khan. America’s current and future Islamic extremists, while trying as hard as they can to die for The Cause, might view an 18-month prison stint more as delayed gratification than as wait-just-a-minute deterrent.

Here’s what the fight’s about in a quick nutshell: In the aftermath of 9/11, U.S. prosecutors were given tough new anti-terrorism laws and sentences as primary tools in the nation’s counter-terrorism strategy to punish and deter. The idea was to throw a bigger book at not only terrorist acts that directly cause death and destruction but also at soft “material support” activities that enable the violence. The USA Patriot Act, one of the new laws, increased the maximum terms of imprisonment for material support for two of the more common kinds of material support, which you can read more about here. One provision at issue here, 2339B of 18 U.S.C., takes into account supportive activity that results in death and allows prison sentences of up to 20 years or life in prison.

That’s the charge to which Khan pleaded guilty and for which Judge Hughes dished out an 18-month sentence. CONTINUE AT SITE