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The West’s Defeat – By Its Own Hand How Jihadist ideology is gaining power through the back door — and with our blessing. Anne Marie Waters

Posted By on August 10th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270983/wests-defeat-its-own-hand-anne-marie-waters

Last week I read a shocking statistic. It is not a surprising statistic, but a shocking one nonetheless. Figures now reveal that a staggering 40% of people under age five in Germany come from a migrant background. That is to say, almost half of young children in Germany are not ethnically German.

Some would argue that this doesn’t matter a great deal, people are people, and Germany will still be Germany. But even if we try to persuade ourselves that this is the case, deep down we all know it is not. Germany was German because of the German people. Now, in a couple of generations, it will be something else: the place formerly known as Germany. This will particularly be the case if, as I suspect is likely to be the case, many (if not most) of those under fives come from an Islamic background. That will change the face of Germany forever. Indeed it is already doing so.

In my book, Beyond Terror – Islam’s Slow Erosion of Western Democracy – I argue that it is immigration from Muslim societies that will defeat Western civilization. Terrorism will not. The West will not lose a military war against the Islamists, it only needs to lose the demographic war, and the culture war, and that has already been lost.

The UK, for example, has for decades seen massive immigration from the Muslim world, and this has changed the country beyond recognition. Female genital mutilation is now so widespread in the UK that specialist (taxpayer-funded) clinics have been established across the country to deal with the medical aftermath of this crime. There are eight such clinics in London alone, and a new one opened last year in Wales (attended by a Labour politician, who tweeted how pleased she was to have an FGM clinic in her area). While we build shiny new clini

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Antifa, the Real Fascists The assault on Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens is just the beginning. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on August 10th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270986/antifa-real-fascists-matthew-vadum

Foul-mouthed Antifa demonstrators went on a rampage August 6 as they assaulted two high-profile conservative activists at a downtown Philadelphia restaurant for being conservatives and supporters of President Trump.

The attack came the day after Antifa smashed the windows at a U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office in Berkeley, Calif., during a leftist counter-protest of a “No to Marxism” rally. Twenty people were arrested. “Besides the damage to the Marine Corps post, Berkeley police also said ‘an extremist element among a large group’ damaged 21 city vehicles, setting one on fire, and slashed their tires,” Fox News reported.

The incident in Pennsylvania’s biggest city also came after the leftist mayor of Portland, Ore., Ted Wheeler (D), allowed anarchy to break out in his city, instead of cracking down on Antifa troublemaking. For 38 days Wheeler, who is also police commissioner, allowed hundreds of his Antifa allies to unlawfully occupy public property at an Occupy ICE protest site that eventually became a biohazard. “I do not want the @PortlandPolice to be engaged or sucked into a conflict, particularly from a federal agency that I believe is on the wrong track,” he tweeted. “If [ICE is] looking for a bailout from this mayor, they are looking in the wrong place.”

The attack in Philadelphia and other recent violent actions by Antifa are yet another reminder that the totalitarianism-loving domestic terrorists of Antifa, who call themselves anti-fascist activists, are the real fascists in today’s America because, among other things, they use violent tactics pioneered by the real-live fascist storm-troopers of Weimar Germany, the Sturmabteilung (SA). These Antifa goons opposed the Nazis but eagerly copied their tactics, using their fists to shut down political opponents and break up meetings and rallies. Some Antifa today even dress like Nazis, wearing black and red, the anarchist colors which traditionally have also been used by Nazis.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s Tax Wisdom The economics profession starts to give him his due. James Freeman

Posted By on August 9th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-tax-wisdom-1533850010

Imagine how high the U.S. economy can soar if President Trump resolves the arguments he started with America’s trading partners. Already the conventional wisdom on the tax law he signed in December is moving in his direction. Whereas prior to the law critics suggested it would provide a modest temporary boost, there’s now an emerging consensus that the law may pull so much investment into the United States that it could impoverish governments across the globe.

Nothing says establishment consensus like the International Monetary Fund. The Journal reports on the findings of a new IMF working paper forecasting the results of the suddenly more competitive United States:

Companies will be more likely to put profits and real investment in the U.S. than they were before the U.S. lowered its corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, according to the paper. That will leave fewer corporate profits for other countries to tax.

This obviously suggests that foreign governments will be collecting less revenue from U.S. firms. Is Mr. Trump really going to drain swamps all around the planet? While that may be rather an appealing thought, the good news is that even voracious governments will be more likely to see the benefits of maintaining a competitive tax system. This will allow them to keep businesses in their jurisdictions, still generating government revenue.

The Journal notes that “other countries are likely to chase the U.S. by lowering their corporate tax rates, too, creating the potential for what critics have called a race to the bottom.”

For a long time the U.S. refused to join this race. The IMF paper notes that prior to the new law, the U.S. corporate income tax rate was the highest in the OECD “with no significant change over 30 years.” The IMF economists add: “Compounded by investor-level taxation of dividends and capital gains, high tax rates discouraged equity investment in the corporate sector while creating a marginal subsidy for debt finance.”

Now we’re competing in a race that can have many winners. Just ask Ireland and the countries of Scandinavia, which enjoy low tax rates on corporate income. And there can be many more winners as pro-growth policies catch on. The Journal notes, “When one country cuts tax rates, usually other countries follow,” said Alexander Klemm, deputy division chief of the IMF’s tax policy division and one of the paper’s authors.”

America is no longer a follower. Separately the Journal reports that economists are now raising their expectations for the U.S.:

CONTINUE AT SITE

BOOKS Comments turned off

Thomas Sowell’s ‘Discrimination and Disparities’ Is The Book About Racism That America Needs Sowell’s calm and calculated look at racial disparity in America is a stunning work of brevity and reason. David Marcus

Posted By on August 9th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/09/thomas-sowells-discrimination-disparities-book-racism-america-needs/

Sometimes the slim volumes are the most deadly. Such is the case with Thomas Sowell’s “Discrimination and Disparities,” which in fewer than 200 pages lays bare the grave faults and assumptions of people on both sides of the political divide about outcomes for racial groups. In a long, storied career, Sowell has been a beacon of reason and evidence-based thinking. In this book, he makes the fruits of his labors accessible to almost anyone. Anyone who wishes to think, speak, or write on race in America would be remiss in not reading it.

Sowell takes aim at two typical explanations for differences in the success of racial groups. One, most associated with the Left, is that discrimination by racial groups in power is the primary force creating bad outcomes for the groups out of power. The other, most associated with the Right, is that racial groups have inherent abilities or disabilities based on factors such as IQ distribution that lead to unequal outcomes.

Not only does Sowell argue that neither of these explanations is sufficient, he also effectively shows that the truth does not lie in some simple combination of the two. In fact, the issue is vastly more complicated than merely finding which balance between these two competing ideas best tells us the truth about why outcomes are what they are.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Islamic Extremist Trained Children to Commit School Shootings at New Mexico Compound By Jack Crowe

Posted By on August 9th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/islamic-extremist-trained-children-to-commit-school-shootings/

An Islamic extremist was training as many as eleven children to commit school shootings at a dilapidated compound in New Mexico, according to court documents filed by government prosecutors Wednesday.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, the son of a suspected co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, was training the children to use assault rifles before his compound was raided by authorities on Friday, CBS News reports.

“He poses a great danger to the children found on the property as well as a threat to the community as a whole due to the presence of firearms and his intent to use these firearms in a violent and illegal manner,” prosecutor Timothy Hasson wrote in justifying his request that Wahhaj be held with out bail ahead of his trial. A judge complied with the request, though prosecutors did not mention the school shooting plot in court; that information was provided in court filings by one of the victimized children’s foster mothers.

The adults present at the compound were “considered extremist of the Muslim belief,” according to Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe.

Wahhaj’s public defender disputed the school shooting claim, arguing it was based on little information.

39-year-old Wahhaj is additionally accused of kidnapping his 4-year-old son from his mother in Georgia. Authorities are still unaware whether unidentified human remains found on Wahhaj’s property may be the missing boy.

In his arrest warrant, authorities allege Wahhaj told the boy’s mother he intended to perform an exorcism on the boy and never returned after asking to take him to a park.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Academia Doesn’t Get to Define ‘Racism’ for the Rest of Us By Robert VerBruggen

Posted By on August 9th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/racism-debate-sarah-jeong-academia-cannot-define-words/

The latest controversy stems from a deep confusion about how language works.

A “descriptivist” is someone who studies how language is used. A “prescriptivist” is someone who tells other people how to use language correctly. And while these are often framed as opposing camps, they need not be: A thoughtful descriptivist realizes that strongly established usage patterns should generally be treated as rules by someone who wants to communicate effectively; a thoughtful prescriptivist realizes that the rules emerge from constantly evolving usage patterns.

There’s a certain strain of prescriptivism, though, that merely seeks to impose rules on other people’s language, often on nothing more than one’s own say-so. Overwhelmingly, these folks are harmless-if-annoying self-appointed “sticklers” who insist, for example, that you must not split infinitives or start sentences with conjunctions. But ill-founded prescriptivism also rears its head with political terms, and we’ve been seeing a bit of that lately from the woke left.

Some academics who study racial matters use the word “racism” to mean not “dislike of people on the basis of race,” which is how most people use it, but rather something like “prejudice plus power” or what is more clearly called “institutional” or “systemic” racism — meaning, conveniently, that members of minority groups by definition cannot be racist. And as Scott Alexander noted at Slate Star Codex back in 2014, parts of the Left are no longer willing to admit that this is a departure from standard usage by saying something along the lines of, “I suppose a group of black people chasing a white kid down the street waving knives and yelling ‘KILL WHITEY’ qualifies by most people’s definition, but I prefer to idiosyncratically define it my own way, so just remember that when you’re reading stuff I write.”

Many simply point to academic definitions, as though academia had the power to redefine words for the rest of society; that, of course, is not how language works.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Betsy DeVos’s Loan-Forgiveness Rule Gets Slimed by the College Cartel By Frederick M. Hess & Cody Christensen

Posted By on August 9th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/betsy-devoss-loan-forgiveness-rule-slimed-by-college-cartel/

The new standard is clearly better for colleges, taxpayers, and students who are willing to repay their debts.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has issued new guidelines on federal student-loan forgiveness in an attempt to more sensibly balance the rights of borrowers and taxpayers. Predictably, the higher-education cartel and its media allies were aghast. The New York Times headlined its story “DeVos Proposes to Curtail Debt Relief for Defrauded Students.” Other headlines included “Betsy DeVos’ Message to Students: You Have the Right to Be Ripped Off” and “Betsy DeVos’ New Proposal Aligns Her With For-Profit Colleges Over Debt-Saddled Students.” The Center for Responsible Lending’s Ashley Harrington huffed that the proposal was “a roadmap for institutions seeking to abuse students.”

What made this so bizarre, even by the standards of the mud-slinging higher-education debate, is that it’s unclear whether all students seeking loan forgiveness have actually been defrauded. Indeed, the impetus for DeVos’s action was the likelihood that the previous rules, put forward under President Obama, were going to put taxpayers on the hook for billions to bail out students who hadn’t been victimized.

Certainly, one can quibble about the particulars of the new rule — including an unfortunate and arbitrary provision stipulating that only borrowers who enter into default can apply for borrower defense. But to allege, for example, that DeVos is curtailing “Debt Relief for Defrauded Students” is to beg the key question.

The new guidance concerns a provision of the federal student-loan program known as “Borrower Defense to Repayment.” This is a mechanism for forgiving the loans of students who attend colleges that engage in fraud, such as by misrepresenting program information or future employment and earnings. So far, so good.

The problem is that the Obama administration, as part of its larger crusade against for-profit colleges, issued guidance that created an astonishingly far-reaching definition of fraud — opening the floodgates for across-the-board loan discharges, at taxpayer expense, if “public interest” minions could show merely that colleges made modest, inadvertent mistakes in marketing or advertisements.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Smith College Employee Investigated for Following School Policy By Tom Knighton

Posted By on August 9th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/smith-college-employee-follows-policy-now-investigated-for-doing-so/

Have you ever followed the rules of your job, only to land yourself in hot water because of it?

For most of us, if it happened, it was soon resolved because, yes, we followed the rules. It’s a pain in the rear, but it’s soon taken care of and life goes on.

For a staff member of Smith College, that may or may not happen.

You see, the staff member saw what he believed to be a man lounging in the common area of a building at a women’s college during the summer. That seemed suspicious, so he called it in as Smith College policy requires him to do.

The campus police arrived and investigated and found out that it was a student, though one with an extremely short haircut, one short enough to offer a bit of confusion as to the sex of the individual without a more thorough examination.

I’m sure the student wasn’t happy about that, and who could blame her? Being called a guy isn’t exactly cool, and I get a woman being upset about that, even if it’s based on a mere glance.

However, what is the student is most upset about? Well, she’s black and so now it’s a whole racial thing.

As The College Fix reported, “With no evidence, the teaching assistant and residential advisor claimed on Facebook last week that the incident was an example of racism.”

MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

GOP’s Special Election Wins Counter Media Spin By Adele Malpass

Posted By on August 9th, 2018

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/08/08/gops_special_election_wins_counter_media_spin_137760.html

The media narrative from Tuesday night’s special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District is that even a loss is good news for Democrats. What’s been under-reported is that Republicans won the vast majority of the 11 special elections for U.S. House and Senate seats held since the 2016 election.

One of the races, in California’s 34th Congressional District, was won by a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic district. In the remaining 10 special elections, where Republicans were defending seats, eight were won by Republicans.

The media narrative is that Democrats’ “success” in making some of these races close has broader implications for the November midterms. Not so. Only in Alabama, where Doug Jones beat flawed candidate Roy Moore, and in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, where Conor Lamb beat Rick Saccone, can Democrats claim true victories.

Special elections are a minority party’s dream come true. They are all about turnout, which poses a challenge given that they are held at off-cycle times, and involve open seats. Incumbents usually have enormous advantages of money, name identification and organization. However, since the 2016 election, the advantage was negated in five of the 11 special elections. These were held to replace Cabinet appointees in the Trump administration, all of whom had strong support in their home states and districts: Jeff Sessions, Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price, Mike Pompeo and Ryan Zinke.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump pushes prison reform with successful state leaders by Gabby Morrongiello

Posted By on August 9th, 2018

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/trump-pushes-prison-reform-with-state-leaders-who-have-found-success

President Trump will spend Thursday afternoon huddling with administration officials and state leaders to discuss a path forward for prison form in Congress, something his administration has privately pushed for in recent weeks.

The 4 p.m. roundtable at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey will include four Republican governors, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards of Lousiana, and Attorneys General Pam Bondi and Ken Paxton of Florida and Texas, respectively.

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley noted in a statement Thursday that each of the participants hail “from states that have already implemented” reforms similar to those contained in the First Step Act, a bill that passed the House in May and could be the foundation for a bipartisan deal in the Senate.

The president and his team have been working behind the scenes in recent weeks to modify the legislation to include changes to current sentencing laws and measures that would target recidivism rates among previously incarcerated individuals.

According to the Washington Post, the White House is in close contact with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah on the issue.

But efforts to amend the prison system and reduce sentences for crimes like nonviolent drug offenses could be met with resistance among conservative lawmakers who typically support the president. Some have even suggested that Attorney General Jeff Sessions could complicate matters given his longstanding hard-line views on criminal justice.

“With all that I have done to help Sessions, to keep the president from firing him, I think [he] ought to stay out of it,” grassley told the Post on Thursday.