NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Manafort, Cohen and Trump

Posted By on August 22nd, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/manafort-cohen-and-trump-1534894066

The jury conviction of Paul Manafort and the guilty plea by Michael Cohen on Tuesday are a damaging commentary on the shady operators Donald Trump associated with in his private and political life. Whether they also pose a fatal threat to his Presidency is far from clear, however, and the evidence in both cases is unrelated to the Russian collusion claims that set these prosecutions in motion.

A Virginia jury convicted Mr. Manafort on eight counts of fraud in his personal financial dealings, while failing to reach a unanimous verdict on 10 others. As these columns warned Mr. Trump in 2016, Mr. Manafort is a longtime Beltway fixer whose business was profiting from his political connections. He is the personification of “the swamp.”One irony is that Mr. Trump hired him as campaign chairman in part because most Republicans with political experience shunned the New York insurgent. Mr. Trump knew Mr. Manafort from his apartment in Trump Tower, and he came recommended for his experience as a convention delegate counter for Gerald Ford in the 1976 scrum with Ronald Reagan. Mr. Trump fired him as campaign chairman weeks after the July GOP convention, but in 2017 special counsel Robert Mueller targeted Mr. Manafort for his ties to Ukrainian politicians who are close to Russia.

Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea may pose a greater risk to Mr. Trump given the lawyer’s role in paying $130,000 to pornography actress Stephanie Clifford so she would keep silent about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump in 2006. Mr. Cohen first denied making the payments, and Mr. Trump publicly denied knowing about them, but Mr. Cohen now says they both knew.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Not the Climate Apocalypse The EPA’s power rule won’t save coal and won’t poison the planet.

Posted By on August 22nd, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/not-the-climate-apocalypse-1534894336

Of the Obama Administration’s many power grabs, none was more audacious than its bid to regulate coal-fired electric power out of business. The Trump Administration is now proposing to rewrite the rule in a way that honors the law and still reduces carbon emissions, yet it is being portrayed as radical.

The disparate treatment reflects the double standard toward climate-change policy in the media. Anything that enhances government control of the energy economy and punishes fossil fuels is seen as virtuous, while solutions that defer to the states and don’t punish carbon fuels are a sellout to business. How about looking at the legal and energy merits?

The most notable fact about the draft Environmental Protection Agency rule introduced on Tuesday is its modesty. Rather than dictating from Washington, the rule restores the cooperative federalism of the Clean Air Act by giving states much-needed flexibility to balance their energy needs while cutting CO2 emissions.

The Clean Air Act directs the EPA to implement the “best system of emission reduction” for pollutants, which the agency has long applied to individual power plants. The Obama anti-carbon crusaders soared over that language to compel states to reorganize their electric grids to favor renewable fuels.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Clarity About Clearances By Angelo Codevilla

Posted By on August 21st, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/21/clarity-about-clearances/

Last week, a dozen former directors and deputy directors of CIA in Democratic administrations (Robert Gates made the list bipartisan) chastised President Trump for removing their former colleague John Brennan’s security clearance. This week, another 150 lesser former officials, nearly all Democrats, joined in.

“Never before” they trumpeted, had they “seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool.”

On what planet?

It Isn’t a “Free Speech” Issue
The following are the cardinal facts about security clearances in the American legal system—unchallengeable and unchallenged—followed by an equally incontrovertible account of how President Trump has departed from the presidency’s management of security clearances—but in a way entirely opposite from that which his “deep state” detractors allege.

First, blow away the smoke. The former directors allege Trump’s removal of Brennan’s clearance had “nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances—and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.”

Note well: while reasonable people may disagree about the basis on which security clearances should be granted or removed, it is wholly distinct from the question of who has the authority to do so. About that, no disagreement is possible. The president of the United States has the sole, unquestionable, unrestricted authority to grant and withhold security clearances. Conflating those questions with that of all citizens’ freedom of speech confuses the public and suggests dishonestly that certain people have a right to special access to secrets. Not so.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Enough is Enough”: UK Antisemitism & Leftist Double Standards

Posted By on August 21st, 2018

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2018/08/enough-is-enough-uk-antisemitism.html

As most readers will know, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, adopted in May 2016, includes

Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

James Allan Sly, not Smart, and Going Down

Posted By on August 21st, 2018

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/08/sly-smart-going/

Turnbull is now just a few party-room votes away from getting his marching orders. A rash of Cabinet resignations would speed that exit and establish for the record those best qualified to begin repairing the immense damage this Prime Minister has wrought, not least bringing back the base

So it was 48-35 for the Black Hand gang and its various hangers-on in today’s Liberal Party leadership spill. Mr. Turnbull might be just about the most incompetent politician ever when it comes to choosing policies that appeal to his supporters and his party’s base and then defending them in the court of public opinion. But put Malcolm into the Machiavellian world of provoking or fighting off leadership spills and the man comes into his own. He can white-ant and leak and undermine a first-term PM who won a huge majority better than anyone.

Make him the target of others who might want his leader’s mantle and a prodigious rat cunning comes into play. It was a tactical move of immense intelligence to vacate the leadership at the start of today’s party room meeting, and then force a vote of MPs a week or so before the challengers were ready. You can expect the Prime Minister’s office to go into overdrive undermining the naysayers from today forward too, by which I mean even more than usual for those outside his Black Hand inner circle.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

John Brennan Shows How to Lose to Trump in One Easy Step By Rich Lowry

Posted By on August 21st, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/john-brennan-former-cia-director-diminishes-himself/When Trump’s opponents are baited into violating norms, they diminish themselves and their cause.

John Brennan may not know it, but he is acting in a drama scripted and produced by Donald J. Trump.

As Eli Lake of Bloomberg perceptively observed, President Trump isn’t trying to silence Brennan by revoking his security clearance, as the former CIA director’s defenders insist, but to elevate him as a foil.

Trump couldn’t hope for a better poster boy for the so-called deep state than a former CIA director who immediately began to sound like a commentator for MSNBC upon leaving government — and, indeed, signed up as a commentator for MSNBC.

It has been the usual practice of former top intelligence professionals to keep their political opinions, and especially their wild-eyed rants, to themselves. They understand that, having been entrusted with some of the most sensitive powers of the United States government, they should show forbearance and restraint lest they undermine the reputations of their institutions.

Brennan has had no such compunction. Granted, he’s acted under provocation. Trump has goaded him on Twitter and launched extraordinary broadsides against the work of U.S. intelligence agencies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Antifa Members Beat Leftist Protester for Holding American Flag By Mairead McArdle

Posted By on August 21st, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/antifa-members-beat-leftist-protester-holding-american-flag/

A progressive Democrat earned his fellow left-wing protesters’ wrath earlier this month for the act of carrying an American flag.

Paul Welch, who describes himself as a “slightly progressive leftist,” was protesting the right-wing group Patriot Prayer’s August 4 rally in Portland, Ore. As he carried his American flag alongside other counterprotesters, several black-clad Antifa members carrying various weapons demanded he hand over the flag, calling it a “fascist symbol.” A viral video captured Welch clinging to his flag as several masked men in makeshift armor try to wrest it from his hands. One of them can be seen hitting him repeatedly and then clubbing him on the back of his head, which causes him to collapse instantly and lie curled up on the ground in his own blood.

“I remember thinking there was a very good chance that I could be beaten to death,” Welch told the Oregonian. A three-inch slash on his head required four staples, and he missed two days of work to heal from the concussion he suffered.

“The Right and certainly a lot of smaller groups like Patriot Prayer might rush to things like the flag and try to take it up as, ‘This is our symbol exclusively,’” the 38-year-old line cook said. “Part of my thinking was to take it back.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

South African Government Begins Seizing Land from White Farmers By Jack Crowe

Posted By on August 21st, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/south-african-government-begins-seizing-land-white-farmers/

The South African government has begun seizing land from white farmers as part of a nation-wide redistribution effort that commenced Monday with the appropriation of two large game farms.

The farms, located in the northern province of Limpopo, were unilaterally seized after their owners refused to accept a combined $2.8 million payment from the government, claiming the properties are worth roughly ten times that amount, according to the Johannesburg-based newspaper City Press.

Akkerland Boerdery, the hunting company that operates the farms, was informed of the impending seizure earlier this year and immediately filed an injunction to prevent it, but the Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs blocked their appeal.

“Notice is hereby given that a terrain inspection will be held on the farms on April 5, 2018 at 10am in order to conduct an audit of the assets and a handover of the farm’s keys to the state,” a letter sent to the owners in April said.

“What makes the Akkerland case unique is that they apparently were not given the opportunity to first dispute the claim in court, as the law requires,” Annelie Crosby, a spokeswoman for the agricultural industry association AgriSA, told City Press.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Was the Pre-Trump World Normal or Abnormal? By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on August 21st, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/trump-disrupted-american-transformation-into-lead-from-behind-nation/

The ‘unpresidential’ outsider disrupted America’s transformation into a ‘lead from behind’ nation.

Much of the controversy that surrounds the policies of Donald Trump can be explained as a reaction to the past. He was either clumsily disrupting the sacrosanct or trying to resurrect what was lost.

In other words, what you feel about Trump is inseparable from what you think of the world before Trump.

Was the status quo, especially in the years between 2009 and 2017, normal or abnormal — at least compared with the prior half century?

Take the challenge of China. We are now locked in a veritable trade war with the Chinese. Each side escalates with a threatened new round of tariffs. The subtexts of the conflict range from Chinese military ascendency to patronage of nuclear North Korea.

Is Trump creating unnecessary conflicts ex nihilo, or trying to address what was an abnormal, one-sided assault at which most prior presidents had shrugged their shoulders?

Certainly, China is a proven systematic trade cheater. Given its size and clout, traditional international means of rectifying such massive violations had proven impotent.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Police Investigating ‘Unlawful and Dangerous’ Toppling of ‘Silent Sam’ Confederate Statue at UNC By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on August 21st, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/police-investigating-unlawful-and-dangerous-toppling-of-silent-sam-confederate-statue-at-unc/

On Monday night, a group of roughly 250 violent protesters toppled a Confederate monument from its plinth at the University of North Carolina (UNC)-Chapel Hill. “Silent Sam” commemorated the UNC students who had gone off to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War.

Protesters had scheduled a rally entitled “Until They All Fall,” for 7 p.m.

According to the flyer, the event would be “a demonstration against institutional white supremacy at UNC, in solidarity with Maya Little on the day of her trial for marking Silent Sam with her own blood.”

In May, UNC Ph.D. student Maya Little — who is black — mixed her own blood with red paint and dashed it on the “Silent Sam” statue. She was arrested for defacing a public monument, and her trial started Monday. “That statue is not a historical object,” Little told The News & Observer. “It’s missing its history. What I did was give it some context.”

UNC’s independent student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, shared pictures and video of the protest.

Demonstrators chanted “tear it down!”

The crowd went crazy when Silent Sam fell.

Ph.D. student Samee Siddiqui shared an image of the fallen Silent Sam, where protesters proceeded to bury its head in the dirt. CONTINUE AT SITE