EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Sad State of UC Berkeley A Berkeley alumnus speaks out on the university’s nightmarish turn. Laurence Jarvik

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

Author’s note: A week ago I received an invitation to a fundraiser for the Daily Californian Foundation, which raises private money to support the UC Berkeley student newspaper.

However, after recent violent attacks on Milo, Pam Geller, David Horowitz, and Ann Coulter, among others, I felt that I could no longer donate to a newspaper which had apparently abandoned its commitment to free speech, and wanted to share my thoughts in this regard with its staff. As they never responded, I thought publication of my letter in FrontPageMag, founded by a UC Berkeley alumnus and former instructor, might get their attention, and hopefully lead to some “second thoughts” at the Daily Cal:

Thank you for your email and kind invitation.

However, I am too disappointed and embarrassed by what I read in the Daily Californian recently about Free Speech at Berkeley to attend your event.

It is appalling to see articles, opeds, and editorials which advocate violence against those with dissenting opinions in a student newspaper that left campus during the Free Speech Movement in order to maintain editorial independence and commit itself to free speech.

Therefore, I can’t in good conscience support the Daily Cal unless and until it unequivocally disavows and rejects politically correct positions which run counter to principles of freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, freedom of debate, academic freedom and free-thinking in general.

It makes me very sad, because I enjoyed working on the paper when I was a student. But I have been truly horrified by what I have been reading online in the Daily Cal about Ann Coulter, Milo, David Horowitz (a Cal alumnus and former instructor!) and the persecution of conservatives and Republicans on campus.

The paper right now seems to me like a totalitarian propaganda sheet out of a dystopian novel or movie, full of ugly denunciations rather than thoughtful or intelligent journalism. Intolerance would be an understatement to describe the horror show I’ve seen on campus and in the pages of the Daily Cal online. Nightmare might be a better word choice.

So, I regret to say that I am ashamed to be a Cal alumnus, and especially a Daily Cal alumnus, at this time.

Let me know when you have an editor-in-chief and staff who are proud to declare their support for the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence, and I’ll reconsider the issue.

Until that time, I must decline your invitation on principle.

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Laurence A. Jarvik, BA 1977

IMMIGRATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sending Mixed Messages in Sweden Inviting immigrants with one hand, expelling them with the other. Bruce Bawer

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

Even before the so-called refugee crisis began in 2015, immigrants formed a larger percentage of Sweden’s population than of any other country in Europe. During this current wave, Sweden, with under ten million inhabitants, has taken in hundreds of thousands more. Though most of them claim to be in need of asylum, the majority actually aren’t. Many claim to be children, but they look as if they’re twenties or even older.

Sweden has been an easy touch for a generation or more, but the Swedes have never looked more like a bunch of self-destructive suckers than they do now.

At the same time, a growing number of these formerly docile folks are finding their voices. They’re openly expressing support for the non-establishment Sweden Democrat Party, which demands severe limits on immigration. Even the mainstream Moderates, who can feel the Sweden Democrats breathing down their necks, are now talking about imposing serious restrictions. At a conference weekend before last, the Moderates actually voted to challenge the current EU system, whereby asylum seekers are admitted into the superstate before their applications are approved. The Moderates would rather set up “safe places” outside the EU where those asylum seekers can cool their heels while those applications are reviewed. Finally!

And that’s not all. Today Sweden takes in heaven knows how many people from the Muslim world – some as refugees, others through “family reunification” – and hands them permanent residency right off, permitting them to go straight onto the welfare rolls and stay there for a lifetime. The Moderates now want to issue temporary residency to these people, who would only be awarded permanent status – and, eventually, citizenship – after proving their ability to support themselves and their families. In addition, the Moderates have proposed several other reforms, such as language tests and limits on social-service disbursements per household. Again: finally!

A bit more good news: already, of the hundreds of thousands of self-styled asylum seekers who’ve come to Sweden since 2015, over sixty thousand have seen their asylum applications rejected – and about half of that sixty thousand have already left the country voluntarily. But what about the other half? The numbers are so overwhelming that the chief of the border police, Patrick Engström, confessed the other day that he has neither the resources nor the legal authority to carry out all the necessary deportations.

Part of the problem is that many of these rejected asylum seekers are nowhere to be found. Where are they? They’ve likely disappeared into Sweden’s sprawling urban Muslim enclaves and are being sheltered by relatives or other coreligionists. Many gave fake names when they entered the country in the first place (a common practice) and are now presumably living under their real names or other fake ones. Doubtless many of them are already raking in welfare benefits.

OK, you say, but at least there’s a degree of reform. True – but not everybody working for the Swedish government, alas, has gotten the memo. Even as the country’s citizens are calling for limits on immigration – especially from the Muslim world – its embassies in Arab capitals have done something that seems borderline nuts: namely, they’ve packed their websites with material designed to encourage Arab immigration to Sweden. In delectable detail, they explain to residents of Arab countries how much money may well be poured into their pockets if they pack up their tents and head north. (For example, the website of the embassy in Amman explains to potential migrants that if they move to Sweden they’ll get “free school,” “free health care,” even “free public transport” if they’re pushing a baby carriage. If they have, say, six kids, they’ll get $1285 a month, free and clear.)

Nobody in the Swedish government, apparently, thought there was anything odd about these counterproductive come-ons until P. M. Nilsson, political editor of Dagens Industri (Sweden’s answer to the Wall Street Journal), furrowed his brow. The embassy sites, he pointed out, were telling prospective immigrants a lot about the rights they’d have in Sweden, but nothing about their responsibilities.

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Jihadi Dictionary: Reviewed by Nidra Poller

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

Islam is a totalitarian system that regulates down to the smallest detail the life of Muslims, obliges them to impose this system to the ends of the earth, and teaches genocidal hatred of those that do not submit. It is no surprise to learn that this system impacts societies and individuals subject to its oppressive ideology. The opposite would be contrary to everything we have learned about the psychological development of human beings. It is curious to observe that the stubborn refusal to make the connection between ideology and psychology is buttressed by flimsy socio-economic explanations that fall apart as soon as they’re touched.

Not a day goes by without confirmation of the insights compiled in Kobrin’s Jihadi Dictionary. Case in point: Mamade Y, the 19 year-old that tried to commit an attack at the Eiffel Tower on August 5th, had been released for the weekend from the psychiatric institution where he was slated to remain for the next 6 months. The aspiring jihadi’s father explained that his son has problems managing his anger. In the past, whenever he had a fit of anger, he would see a masked man telling him to do things. Lately, it’s a jhadi. The young man, who has been in psychiatric treatment since the family moved to France from Mauritania some sixteen years ago, was angry that weekend because the hospital had refused to give him a smartphone. The family is described as “observant but not radicalized.”

Not “radicalized?” The answer, I think, can be found in the intricate coherent argument developed by Dr. Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, psychoanalyst and counter-terrorism expert. The pathology that produces a young man inspired to stab a soldier at the iconic Tour Eiffel originates in the impossible bonding of the infant with the devalued mother, herself terrorized by a shame-honor culture that leaves her defenseless against male brutality, with all avenues for personal fulfillment blocked by a culture/ideology/religion that perverts every aspect of human relations. Kobrin has opted for a multi-dimensional dictionary format that provides insight into the chasm that separates, term by term, Western and jihadi meanings. Each entry lists a standard dictionary definition, etymology, and usage, followed by a specific jihadi meaning. “Brothers,” for example: The term denotes a spectrum of meaning, from fraternal comradeship to, at the far end, jihadi brothers acting in tandem to commit butchery. Among the examples cited are: Hassan and Walid bin Attash (9/11); Ali Imron, Amrosi, and Muhlas (Bali 2002); Mohamed & Abdulkader Merah (Toulouse, Montauban 2012); the Tsarnaev brothers (Boston Marathon 2013); Ibrahim and Salah Abdeslam (Paris November 2015), the el Bakraoui brothers (Brussels 2016)…[pp 43-4, and “Twinship” p 255]

The sharply observant treatment of this one entry, which is characteristic of the entire dictionary, contrasts vividly with the slack, evasive journalistic approach by which most people consume information about a life and death struggle that, on the contrary, demands clarity, lucidity and vigorous action by democratic governments.

It is obvious, observes Kobrin, that our counter-terrorism programs fall short of reasonable expectations. One reason is the “lethal blind spot” due to lack of knowledge of the “mechanics and dynamics of primitive mental states, mechanisms of defense, and …misuse of objects, constituting perverse behavior.” [pp 59-60] To wit: the August 9th car ramming of soldiers as they came out of their bivouac in Levallois-Perret was met with stubbornly ignorant wonder about the “mystery of the attacker’s motivations.” His “radicalization” was soon revealed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Deserter Honored in the Rose Garden by Mark Steyn

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

On Monday Bowe Bergdahl pleaded guilty to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He will be sentenced next week. To all but a mendacious Administration and its accomplices among the court eunuchs of the Obama media, the truth about this man was obvious from the day of his release by the Taliban three-and-a-half years ago.. Me on June 3rd 2014:

In years to come, when archaeologists are prowling through the ruins of our civilization and wondering how it all happened, I would offer this snapshot. Here’s the history of America’s longest war in two anti-American losers, John Walker Lindh and Bowe Bergdahl, confused young men with a gaping hole at the heart of where their sense of identity should be, stumbling through the Hindu Kush trying to “find themselves”.

In the fall of 2001, the first confused anti-American loser trying to find himself, John Walker Lindh was on the enemy’s side – and was tried, convicted and jailed for life [CORRECTION: 20 years].

By the spring of 2014, the last confused anti-American loser of the Afghan war, Bowe Bergdahl, was on our side – and was honored by the President with a family photo-op in the Rose Garden and declared by the laughably misnamed “National Security Advisor” to have “served the United States with honor and distinction”.

That remains one of the most disgusting images of the last eight years: A deserter who betrayed his comrades being celebrated as a man of “honor” at the People’s House by the highest officials in the land. Me again, from later that week:

On last night’s Hugh Hewitt Show, Hugh and I discussed the continuing fall-out over the Bergdahl/Taliban deal, of which every aspect – whether you come at it from the terrorist end, the deserter end, the legal end, the pajama-boys-with-the-keys-to-the-White-House end – gets more revolting as the days go by. Apropos the President’s determination in his remarks in Brussels to dig in deeper, I said this:

MARK STEYN: ‘Obama’s words in Brussels today, for example, saying “Well, this was a father and his child, his 28-year old… whatever that is, Grade 23 child. You know, every parent wants to get their Grade 23 child back …and we don’t leave anyone behind. The fact is he walked out and he left America behind, this guy – and he did it, by the way, on the advice of his father. He wrote to his father saying, ‘I hate America, it’s a horror, I want to renounce my citizenship.’ And his father emails back, ‘Follow your conscience.”‘

HUGH HEWITT: ‘Oh, my God.’

I don’t think this point has been emphasized enough. Yes, one can argue that it’s appropriate to cut Bergdahl Jnr some slack – thankless war, out on the front line, the strain of it all beginning to tell… But what’s the father’s excuse? He gets communications from his son indicating he’s about to crack. He knows that out there, beyond their vulnerable encampment, is a primitive tribal society where pretty much everyone would either ransom his boy or cut to the chase and saw his head off to make a blockbuster jihadist snuff video for the bazaars of Jalalabad. Surely any responsible parent would say, “Look, I know it can’t be easy for you out there. But there are people who wish to do you harm beyond the fence. Stick with it, talk to your platoon leader… You’re serving honorably in a worthy cause…” You don’t encourage him to take a one-way ticket into the badlands of Afghanistan.

And just to underline that: the justification for Bergdahl Snr’s wacky behavior – the Taliban beard, the invocations of Allah, the Arabic and Pushtu, the pledge that the death of every Afghan child will be avenged – the justification for all this is that, well, he’s also been under a lot of strain. He hasn’t seen his kid for half-a-decade. That could unhinge anyone. Give the guy a break…

But the point is he was pulling this strange stuff before his son was kidnapped.

Which makes that Rose Garden ceremony even more bizarre in its weird optics – the President of the United States embracing a Taliban sympathizer at the White House. There was no need to hold such an intimate photo-op. Yet Obama chose to do it. Why?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Uranium & Diarrhea, Inc by Mark Steyn

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

“Any chance justice will finally come a-callin’ for the Clintons? I suppose anything’s possible. To get away with the “Foundation” scam for as long as Bill and Hill did would be a challenge for most of us. To do it under a six-year Mueller/Comey FBI investigation testifies yet again to the uniquely charmed lives these two lead…”

The big story this week is that the FBI uncovered a Moscow bribery plot just before the Obama Administration approved the transfer of 20 per cent of American uranium into the hands of the Russians.

And who precisely were the Russkies trying to bribe?

They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

The racketeering scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.

Fancy that! A racketeering scheme centered on the Clintons! Who’da thunk it? Other names in the story have a weary familiarity, too:

The connections to the current Russia case are many. The Mikerin probe began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired earlier this year.

Unlike the current “Russia investigation”, where details of dawn raids on Paul Manafort are gaily leaked hither and yon, Mueller and Comey managed to keep the lid on this one for the six-plus years it was active. And happily it doesn’t seem to have obstructed either the Clintons’ or the Russians’ mutually beneficial relationship:

The first decision occurred in October 2010, when the State Department and government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America’s uranium supply.

Hmm. Uranium One… Rosatom… Where have I heard those names before? Oh, yeah. From me, two-and-a-half years ago – April 27th 2015:

One of the lessons learned by the Clintons back in the Nineties is that, if you’re gonna have a scandal, have a hundred of ’em. And then it’s all too complicated and just gives everyone a big headache, and they go back to watching “Friends” or “Baywatch” or whatever it was back then. When a scandal gets too easy to follow, that’s where the danger lies.

As things stand, Vladimir Putin has wound up with control of 20 per cent of American uranium production.

That’s almost too funny an update of the line variously attributed to Lenin, Stalin and others: “The capitalists will sell us the rope by which we will hang them.” In this case, we’ve sold Putin the uranium by which he will nuke us. As the Russian news agency TASS reported two years ago:

‘MOSCOW, May 22 (Itar-Tass) – Russia’s nuclear power corporation Rosatom controls 20 percent of all uranium reserves in the United States, the corporation’s chief, Sergei Kiriyenko told the State Duma on Wednesday…

‘”I am pleased to inform you that today we control 20 percent of uranium in the United States. If we need that uranium, we shall be able to use it any time,” Kiriyenko said.’

Great! By the way, before he became America’s fastest rising uranium executive, Mr Kiriyenko was Prime Minister of Russia.

In return for facilitating the transfer to Putin of one-fifth of US uranium, the Clintons were given tens of millions of dollars by Vancouver businessman Frank Giustra (the founder of “Uranium One” in its pre-Putin days) and various of his associates. In 2006, Mr Giustra told The New Yorker:

“All of my chips, almost, are on Bill Clinton,” he said. “He’s a brand, a worldwide brand, and he can do things and ask for things that no one else can.”

Ah.

Oh, my mistake. When I said Giustra and his pals had given over $100 million to “the Clintons”, I meant they gave it to “The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation” – or its Canadian subsidiary, established after Hillary had signed a disclosure agreement for the US foundation with the Obama Administration and, being Canadian, thus exempt from the disclosure agreement. At least as Bill and Hillary’s lawyers read it.

There is no Clinton “Foundation” – in the sense of a body that engages in charitable activities and does good works. As I said to Hugh Hewitt on the radio all those years ago:

Well wait, but just a minute, Hugh, there is no ‘Clinton Foundation’… The only purpose of this foundation is to enable this family to lead the lifestyle of a head of state after it has ceased to be head of state.

And the only reason anyone ponied up money to the “foundation” is that it was assumed a Clinton would be head of state again in a couple of years – just as the tedious requirements of the Russian constitution required Putin to take a break (albeit entirely nominally) from being head of state for a couple of years. After November 8th, the price for Clinton speeches mysteriously dropped 98 per cent – so the Clintons closed their “foundation”. But by then it had served its purpose.

Everybody who knows anything about charity knows the truth about the Clinton “Foundation” – as The New York Post reported, also all those years ago:

The Clinton Foundation’s finances are so messy that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits last month.

The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.

The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

Indeed. Me again, from April 2015:

For example, Chelsea’s chum Eric Braverman was paid $275,000 for five months’ work. In Clintonworld, charity begins at home. So, if, like all these big-hearted Saudi princes and Canuck uranium execs, you give money to the Clinton Foundation because you care about starving Third World urchins, for every million bucks you hand over, a full 64 grand goes to the Third World urchins and the remaining $936,000 is the processing fee. Paul Mirengoff cautions:

‘It’s important to note that the Clinton Foundation’s status as a problematic charity is distinct from the “Clinton cash” issue that Peter Schweizer and others have highlighted. “Clinton cash” focuses on the fundraising methods used by the Clintons. Specifically, there are substantial allegations that they raise money in part because nations and wealthy individuals hope to influence U.S. policy through their donations, and very possibly have succeeded in doing so.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

UK’s Hateful Hate-Crime Hub by Douglas Murray

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

The problem is that “hate” is an ill-defined thing. What is hateful to one person may not be hateful to another. What is hateful in one context may not be hateful in another.

British authorities have gone along with a definition of hate-crime which allows the victim (real or perceived) to be the arbiter of whether an offence has been committed. This privilege allows a list of people who believe they have been “trolled” or “abused” online over their “race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity” to be arbiters as well as reporters of any and all such crimes. It is worth considering where this can end up.

Can anyone daring to express dissent against any popular view be reported for “trolling”, “abusing” and “committing a hate crime”?

If you were a police officer what would you rather do: sit in the cold outside the house of a known extremist all day, or sit behind a desk with a cup of tea and scrolling through Twitter?

In May, just after the second of four Islamist terrorist attacks in the UK so far this year, British intelligence officials apparently identified 23,000 known extremists in the country. Of these, around 3,000 are believed to pose a present threat and are under investigation or active monitoring. The other 20,000 are categorised as posing a “residual risk”. Due to the strain on resources, those 20,000 are not under constant observation.

This is a subject which, since the terrorist attack in May, has caused some agonising among the British public, not least because of the identities of the attackers. Khalid Masood, the Westminster Bridge and Parliament assailant, for instance, as well as Salman Abedi (the young man of Libyan heritage who carried out a suicide bombing outside a concert in Manchester) had both been on the radar of the British authorities — both had been in the pool of people considered “former subjects of interest” but not an immediate threat. If the authorities had sufficient resources to follow everyone of interest, perhaps they would have been under observation at the time they were planning their attacks. Perhaps, also, a number of people killed in those attacks would still be alive.

The public, though, can be forgiving on these matters. They recognise that resources are not endless, that judgements have to be made and that departments have to choose where to allocate their budgets.

These choices are another reason why the public may judge dimly last week’s announcement from the Home Office. Last week, Britain’s Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced the creation of a new national police hub to crack down on hate-crime and “trolling” online. The unit — which will apparently be run by specialist officers — will assess complaints and work out whether they amount to a crime or not. They will also recommend removing material from online platforms if they — at the official hate-crime hub — deem such material “hateful”.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Saudi Arabia’s Bogus Promise: Allowing Women to Drive by A. Z. Mohamed

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

Saudi women will first have to get permission from a male guardian just to apply for a driver’s license. Enabling women will still be mainly in the hands of their Saudi male guardians, and many will probably not allow their women to drive.

Any discontent felt by angry men who want total control over their women, household or other people will probably not allow their women to drive. If women are disappointed or frustrated by this domination, the blame will stay mainly within the Saudi family. The woman is not able to blame the government, but only her male guardian. Yes, the government may technically have annulled the driving ban but it has issued nothing actually to help women to drive.

The real challenge King Salman needs to face now is how to deal with calls for abolishing male guardianship — a far more urgent and significant reform that, after calculating the risks and rewards, might be postponed indefinitely.

On 27 September, the Council of Senior Scholars, the highest clerical council in Saudi Arabia, endorsed the royal decree allowing women to drive, thereby disrupting years of ultra-conservative fatwas and religious opinions by the kingdom’s leading religious scholars including current and former grand muftis and council members.

In a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the council said that King Salman had issued the decree to serve “the best religious and worldly interests of the country and people,” agreeing that Islam allows women the right to drive.

In attempt to defend previous fatwas banning driving and to avoid alienating dissatisfied hardline adherents to Wahhabi Salafism, the council said that the current fatwas are “based on the benefits and disadvantages of women driving” evaluated first by the ruler and then by clerics and the women’s male guardians: “Male guardians will have to consider both sides of this issue.” In short, women will first have to get permission from a male guardian just to apply for a driver’s license.

It seems that the main and only winner of all this is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

It seems that the main and only winner of the Saudi royal decree allowing women to drive is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (Photo by Nicolas Asfouri – Pool/Getty Images)

For a start, the council’s endorsement of the royal decree proves clearly that senior clerics’ fatwas and opinions are open to dramatic changes. Their fatwas are not fixed or unchangeable. Council members, including the current and former muftis, had banned women driving. The council’s endorsement also emphasizes that the king is more powerful in facing the clerics and cares more about his people. The new decree emphasizes the image of the new king as a powerful, great and disruptive reformer.

These developments also implicitly hurt the image of most of powerful clerics who previously banned women driving, whether they have changed their opinions or not. Such developments lead people to believe that clerics’ fatwas have been just reflections of what rulers want, that the clerics are yes-men and not independent.

Development such as allowing women to apply for drivers’ licenses throw into doubt all fatwas and statements issued by all clerics, dead or alive, who may contradict any of King Salman’s future decrees or decisions. The most challenging one is the kingdom’s possible formal recognition of Israel and normalizing relationships with it.

As for deceased clerics, such as the former grand mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz ibn Baz and the popular and influential Sheikh Mohamed ibn al-Uthaymeen, Saudi citizens think that if these clerics were alive today, they would have changed those fatwas exactly as the current council members and the current grand mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Alsheikh did. As head of the council of senior scholars, he endorsed the royal decree — in direct contradiction to his fatwa last year. Saudi people will now think that senior clerics change their fatwas and religious opinions after the king, and will realize that their authority is secondary to the king’s and therefore should not be their main reference.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Former NPR president leaves the blue bubble and is shocked by what he learns about non-elite Americans By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

I must give Ken Stern, the former CEO of National Public Radio, great credit for having the courage to leave the comforting company of fellow urban elite liberals, and engaging in an odyssey through red America. Writing in the New York Post (where the people who really need to read him won’t be found – they are reading the Times), he lays out his research:

Spurred by a fear that red and blue America were drifting irrevocably apart, I decided to venture out from my overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and engage Republicans where they live, work and pray. For an entire year, I embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race, hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike.

I spent many Sundays in evangelical churches and hung out with 15,000 evangelical youth at the Urbana conference. I wasn’t sure what to expect among thousands of college-age evangelicals, but I certainly didn’t expect the intense discussion of racial equity and refugee issues — how to help them, not how to keep them out — but that is what I got.

To the surprise of very few AT readers, he discovered that the caricatures common on newsrooms throughout the media is utterly false. His long essay drips with sincerity.

But I don’t know how all the angry leftists he left behind will be able to listen to him, for he is far too threatening to their self-esteem, based as it is on sneering down on others.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sultan Erdogan and the New Janissaries By Alex Alexiev

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

Alex Alexiev is chairman of the Center for Balkan and Black Sea Studies (cbbss.org) and editor of bulgariaanalytica.org. He tweets it ion national security at tweeter.com/alexieff and could be reached at alexievalex4@gmail.com

Though Western Europe and Washington are reluctant to fess up to this unfortunate fact, Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long ago given up even the pretence of being a democratic polity and is openly pursuing policies detrimental to democracy, the rule of law and Western security considerations. In short, Turkey has become an Islamist dictatorship every bit as inimical to Western interests as Iran, except for being allowed by the West to maintain the charade that it is still a member of NATO and the Western community of nations. This is a dangerous charade that will inevitably come back to haunt us. For the reality is that Erdogan the Islamist has ambitions that go beyond Turkey and even the Middle East. Well known for his admiration for the Ottomans, Erdogan imagines himself as the leader of a new Ottoman Empire based on an Islamized Turkey, but exerting its influence far beyond. Many would dismiss this as an unrealistic pipe dream, and it probably is just that ultimately. But in pursuing it vigorously, Erdogan has already done much damage both in Turkey and abroad. Suffice it to say that Turks who had lived in Germany and the Netherlands for decades, voted for Erdogan in greater percentages (60% and 70% respectively) than voters in Turkey itself in the last referendum.

The key to spreading Erdogan’s Islamist message is an organization called Diyanet, a Turkish directorate for religious affairs that is directly subordinated to him. Few if any Western leaders have ever heard of it, despite its importance. It was originally set up by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1924 for the purpose of training imams for the mosques, but more importantly, it was tasked with preventing the radicalization of Turkish Islam. The type of education received in these madrassa-like institutions, called imam-hatip schools, was considered second-rate and did not qualify their graduates for the university or government work. At the time of Erdogan’s takeover of the government in 2002, there were 450 imam-hatip schools with some 60,000 students. Most of them were the sons of poorly-educated yet devout Muslims, which Erdogan, himself the product of such a school, considered prime islamization cadres. And so, after neutralizing the Turkish military by means of bogus but ultimately effective show trials, Erdogan set about to build up and promote an army of pious imam-hatip graduates devoted to him, not unlike the janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, who considered themselves the slaves of the sultan alone. Here it must be mentioned that these madrassas as well as the mandatory religious education curriculum in Turkey is highly discriminatory to the extent that it teaches exclusively the Sunni Hanafi school of Muslim jurisprudence, which is not practiced by the large populations of Alevis and the Kurds, who follow the shafi’i madhab, not to mention the millions of secular Turks.

Appointing a zealous Islamist (who considered Israel a terror organization on a par with ISIS) to lead the Diyanet in 2010, Erdogan removed all career obstacles previously faced by imam-hatip graduates, indeed began treating them preferentially for government work and in the military, while providing the Diyanet with massive amounts of money and islamizing the curriculum to exclude evolution. This promptly made these schools a hugely desirable career choice for aspiring Islamists. And so, by 2015, there were 1961 imam-hatip schools with more than 1.2 million students and a budget of $2 billion.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Finally, the Missing Puzzle Piece By Eileen F. Toplansky

Posted By on October 23rd, 2017

It has always niggled me as to what the always arrogant 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, actually meant when he was caught on an open microphone telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he needed more “flexibility” from the Russians. They needed to give him “space” since “it was [his] last election” but “after ‘[his] election, [he] would have more flexibility.”

Medvedev’s retort was “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

While Medvedev may have understood what Obama was saying, most Americans were left quite bewildered by this cryptic message.

Until now.

Enter the breathtaking information that the most intricate and shady backroom deals were happening both nationally and internationally while Congress and the American public were deliberately kept in the dark, not only by the Obama administration, but also by Obama’s Department of Justice and the very same FBI officials who are now attempting to concoct a fictitious collusion story about Trump.

John Solomon and Alison Spann have discovered that

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States.

And even though it would have been an unbelievable law enforcement achievement “to have brought down a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme that compromised a sensitive uranium transportation asset inside the U.S. and facilitated international money laundering,” nary anything substantial was done to expose this deep-seated corruption.

For those who have, over the years, watched with horror and ire as Obama usurped power and ran the government like a dictator, the latest revelations are not especially surprising. For in our hearts we always believed that Obama was intent upon destroying this country in as many ways as he could. Now the facts have been established with incontrovertible evidence and they confirm what we always felt given Obama’s unending anti-American stance. An extremely serious national security breach was permitted under his watch.

But now that the smoking guns are being exposed, we also wonder if the few good people who have the power to effect change will now use that power. Will they recall the Psalmist who cried out

“O God, keep not Thou silence; Hold not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.

They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.

When will “righteousness and peace” come together again? When will our country be restored and our faith in our leaders be re-gnited? “How long shall the wicked exult” and “speak arrogantly” as the “workers of iniquity bear themselves loftily”?

Until the swamp is truly cleaned out and our elected officials “stand up for ‘us’ against the workers of iniquity” and ensure that “the right shall return unto justice,” Obama and his ilk (Hillary Clinton, Lois Lerner, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton, Samantha Power, James Comey, and Robert Mueller) will continue to wreak their evil. And we cannot look to the mainstream media to faithfully execute their job.