BOOKS Comments turned off

‘Citizen Chronicler of the American Story’ David McCullough hooked readers on U.S. history. By James Freeman

Posted By on August 11th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/citizen-chronicler-of-the-american-story-11660170030?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

What would we do without experts? The era of Covid has seen immense damage inflicted on Americans by some of the most highly credentialed people in our society. So let’s remember a remarkable man who didn’t leave something as important as U.S. history to the professoriate.

Bill Eville reported this week for the Vineyard Gazette:

David McCullough, a towering force in American literature and biography, winner of the President’s Medal of Freedom, two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book Awards, died on August 7. He was 89 years old.
He died of natural causes at home in Hingham, the family confirmed, where he had lived for the past few years, with all five children by his side.

Candice Millard remembers in the Atlantic:

The first book I read by McCullough was John Adams, one of his many masterworks that begins with men on the move. “In the cold, nearly colorless light of a New England winter,” he wrote, “two men on horseback traveled the coast road below Boston, heading north.” For me, that was all it took. I wanted to know who these men were, where they were going, what was going to happen next. I did not care that the book was nearly 800 pages long. I was hooked.

So were countless others. McCullough didn’t spend a career on campus, and readers may have been better for it. In 2003 Librarian of Congress James Billington wrote:

David McCullough is the citizen chronicler of the American story for our time… As an independent scholar, he is not beholden to any of the ideological causes or methodological fads that often take possession of otherwise good historians in bureaucratized academia–and cause them to end up writing more for each other than for a general audience. Unlike many revisionist historians, McCullough basically likes what he is writing about; yet he seeks to clear away myths for which he can find no factual basis.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mar-a-Lago Search Shows the Swamp’s Trump Obsession: Dan Henninger

Posted By on August 11th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-swamps-trump-obsession-mar-a-lago-raid-fb

An FBI raid against a former president should never happen. End of discussion.

Let us assume that for 99.99% of the U.S. population in early August 2022, the last thing on their mind was Mar-a-Lago. Instead, a short list of real things preoccupying Americans would include inflation, crime, battles in Congress over spending, Ukraine fighting World War III for us in Europe, and China conducting massive live-fire military exercises around Taiwan.

So it came as a surprise to discover Monday evening that the Justice Department and FBI decided the most important thing in the world just now was raiding former President Donald Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Among other thoughts, a three-letter acronym starting with W comes to mind.

Forgive me for not spending more than a moment on the legal niceties of this event—the applicability of the Presidential Records Act, that it had be about “something big” involving classified documents, or that no one, including a former president, is above the law. They are all beside the point.

You can hate Donald Trump until your eyes pop out, but let us be clear: He was elected the 45th president of the U.S. He served four years in office. No former president who was disliked by many—not Clinton, Reagan nor FDR—had his home invaded by a squad of FBI agents. This should never happen in the U.S. End of discussion.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

America’s Strategic Oil Reserves by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on August 11th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18788/america-strategic-oil-reserves

The Biden administration in April sanctioned the sale of our nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the highest bidder. They have done so under the logic that putting more oil on the global market at a time when Russia has an energy stranglehold on Europe could force down the pump price of gasoline.

One could ask, as Congressional mid-term elections loom, and the price of gas soared to five dollars a gallon, has the White House made a strategic energy decision based on politics rather than on what is in the best security interests of our nation — because the country that is among the high bidders for our oil reserves is China.

This is the China that has obliterated Tibet.

This is the China that practices slavery, torture in internment camps, forced labor, child labor and organ-harvesting on live detainees.

This is the China that has choked democracy in Hong Kong.

This is the China that threatens the freedom of 23 million Taiwanese.

This is the China that has sought to cripple an Australian military plane flying over international waters.

This is the China that has fired missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone and tried to blind US pilots with laser beams.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China and Russia—With Help from Biden—Attack the Dollar by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on August 11th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18787/china-russia-attack-dollar

Russia and China have launched another attempt to develop a “new global reserve currency.” In other words, they are again attacking the dollar.

There is only one country that can dethrone the dollar, and it is not a BRICS nation. It is the United States. President Joe Biden is China’s and Russia’s biggest ally in “dedollarizing” the world.

Russia’s ruble, although showing surprising strength of late, is tied to a country in long-term—and seemingly irreversible—decline. Moreover, the Russian Federation, thanks to its aggression and barbarism in Ukraine, is cementing its role as a pariah.

Who wants to hold a weak Chinese currency that is racing toward the edge of the cliff?

Furthermore, Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, believes in “absolute” control of every aspect of society. The idea of free convertibility, therefore, is almost certainly anathema to him. So until China completely abandons its model of economic development and removes Xi as ruler, the renminbi cannot dethrone the dollar. The Chinese failure to make their currency widely acceptable means, as a practical matter, the BRICS currency will never get off the ground.

What are the attributes of a global reserve currency? It must be stable, it must be underpinned by a large and strong economy, it must be freely convertible, and it must be used widely.

Americans should not remain overconfident. The only reason the greenback is still the world’s reserve currency is because there is no practical alternative. China and Russia, however, are busy trying to figure out how to engineer a replacement.

“The issue of creating an international reserve currency based on a basket of currencies of our countries is being worked out,” said Vladimir Putin in June, at a meeting of the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—grouping.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Soldiers for the Gender Revolution Left-wing activists have smuggled radical gender theory into more than 4,000 schools. Christopher F. Rufo

Posted By on August 11th, 2022

https://www.city-journal.org/gsa-clubs-smuggle-gender-ideology-into-k-12-education

Radical gender theory has made sudden inroads in America’s schools. Many parents have watched in confusion as their children repeat the movement’s slogans and adopt synthetic sexual identities such as “non-binary,” “pansexual,” and “genderqueer.” The next question for many families is: Where does this surge in left-wing sexual ideology come from? One answer: from a network of professional activists, who have smuggled university-style gender theory into more than 4,000 schools under the cover of “gender and sexuality” clubs, or GSAs.

The main national organization behind this campaign, the GSA Network, is a professionally staffed nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar annual budget. GSA Network serves as an umbrella organization for more than 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” across 40 states. Once called the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, the group rebranded in 2016, reflecting a new focus on “the limits of a binary gender system.” The individual chapters, which operate in elementary, middle, and high schools, often use the language of “LGBTQ inclusion” and “anti-bullying” in their public relations, but behind the scenes, the central organization is driven by pure left-wing radicalism that extends far beyond sexuality.

According to the organization’s publicly accessible materials and administrative documents, the GSA Network’s ideology follows the basic framework of radical gender theory: white European men created an oppressive system based on capitalism, white supremacy, and “heteronormativity”—that is, the promotion of heterosexuality, the male-female binary, and bourgeois family norms. In order to fight back, racial and sexual minorities must unite under the banner of “intersectionality” and dismantle the interlocking “systems of oppression.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s war on Gaza-based Palestinian terrorists – a wake up call Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on August 11th, 2022

https://bit.ly/3p5Y7DV

The August 2022 Israeli war on Gaza-based Palestinian terrorists serves as a wake up call for Israeli and Western policy makers and public opinion molders, who are determined to observe/assess the volcanic and treacherous Middle East through the accommodating and relatively-peaceful Western lenses.

For example:

*The August 2022 war on Palestinian terrorism is a wake up call to the Israeli and Western “Palestine-Firsters.” Once again, Arab countries showered the Palestinians with an embracing-talk, but refrained from a supportive walk, militarily, financially or politically. Hence, the 2022 Arab walk was consistent with the Arab conduct during all previous military clashes between Israel and Palestinian terrorism: the First and Second Intifada of 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, the 1982-85 war against the PLO in Lebanon, and the four wars against the Gaza-based Hamas terrorists in 2008-9, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

*During the last few days, I participated in several TV panel-discussions with experts from Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. All of them concurred with my perspective on the non-centrality of the Palestinian issue in Middle East affairs, displaying indifference or hostility toward the Palestinians. They echoed the Arab image of Palestinians as a role-model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude, as documented by the Palestinian intra-Arab track record.  

*In contrast to Western conventional wisdom, Arab policy makers are convinced that the proposed Palestinian state would be a pro-Iran, pro-Russia and pro-China rogue/terrorist entity, fueling domestic and regional turbulence, and intensifying the existing threats to the survival of every pro-US Arab regime.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Climate Change: The Latest Excuse for Slaughtering Christians by Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on August 10th, 2022

  https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18781/climate-change-excuse-slaughter

“And it is striking how quickly politicians and commentators trot out the same discredited banal narrative that the drivers for such carnage are climate change and lack of resources. They say that the causes are ‘complicated,’ with hardly a mention of the Jihadist ideology that is behind the endless atrocities of ISIS and Boko Haram. And then they say that everyone [Christian and Muslim] suffers and there is a sort of equivalence with victims coming from varied religious backgrounds. They should tell that to the families whose loved ones are targeted, day in and day out, and see what sort of response they receive.” — Lord Alton of Liverpool, June12, 2022.

“[T]he shocking murders in a church in #Nigeria are attributable to Ideology, Insecurity and Impunity – along with indifference by the Buhari Government. Nor can climate change be blamed for executions, abductions and murders.” — Lord Alton, Twitter, June 6, 2022.

“[P]oliticians need to be more honest about what drives the carnage.” — Lord Alton, June 12, 2022.

Politicians have found a new straw man: climate change. There are certainly many things we can gradually do not to pollute or wreck our planet, but blaming it for the pervasive slaughter of Christians by Muslims in northern Africa is not one of them. It seems, sadly, that what drives the persecution of Christians there, and elsewhere, is doctrine, not climate change.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

And Berger got a $50K fine for stealing classified intel? By Jack Cashill

Posted By on August 10th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/08/and_berger_got_a_50k_fine_for_stealing_classified_intel.html

To understand how deep the corruption is at the Department of Justice, and not just at the top, all one needs to do is compare the treatment of former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and former President Donald Trump.

Whatever concoction the DOJ serves up to frame Trump, it will not match what Berger actually confessed to doing.

In April 2002, former President Bill Clinton designated Berger as his representative to review intelligence documents in advance of the various hearings on 9/11. As a 2007 report by the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform made clear, Berger did not exactly welcome this assignment. The archivists told the House committee, in fact, that Berger “indicated some disgust with the burden and responsibility of conducting the document review.”

To fulfill his obligation to the Clintons, however, Berger was prepared to sacrifice his reputation and very nearly his freedom. According to the House report, Berger made four trips to the National Archives. He did so presumably to refresh his memory before testifying first to the Graham-Goss congressional committee and then to the 9/11 Commission. He made his first visit in May 2002, his last in October 2003.

During at least three of those visits, he stole and destroyed an incalculable number of documents. “The full extent of Berger’s document removal,” said the House report, “is not known and never can be known.”

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Jews at CUNY Call for the Destruction of Israel Using the ‘as a Jew’ accusation against the Jewish State. Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on August 10th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/jews-calling-destruction-israel-cuny-richard-l-cravatts/

“Unfortunately, it is easy on university campuses, even for Jews, to demonize Israel and even call for its destruction, and certainly it requires no bravery in academia, where moral narcissists console each other in an echo chamber of good intentions and virtue-signaling, willing to sacrifice academic integrity, actual reasoned debate, and the safety and viability of the Jewish state in the process.”

As if further confirmation were needed to designate the CUNY system as an egregious purveyor of anti-Israel activism—often replete with anti-Semitic expression—the university is being made to answer for its failure to protect Jewish students and faculty with a new Title VI complaint filed on July 19th by The American Center for Law and Justice.

The complaint, sent to Catherine E. Lhamon, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, contended that “CUNY has become a hotbed for discrimination and antisemitism” and demanded an investigation into “the discriminatory exclusion and harassment that takes place in the CUNY system, and the administration’s failure to do anything concrete to address the issue . . . in what appears to be a systemic and intentional refusal to confront antisemitism and protect the rights of Jewish students and faculty.”

The lawsuit documents anti-Israel, anti-Semitic incidents as far back as 2013 and includes the latest examples of CUNY’s systemic animosity to Israel, Zionism, and, seemingly, Jews. “Just a day after the faculty endorsed BDS,” in 2022, the complaint read, “CUNY Law honored graduation speaker Nerdeen Kiswani—the very same woman who has, among other things openly condoned violence against and the killing of Zionists . . ; glorified intifada and called for its globalization; honored leaders of a terrorist group; and called for ‘Zionist professors’ and ‘Zionist students’ to be removed from CUNY campuses.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden’s Handlers Released 324 Unvetted Afghan Evacuees on Terror Watchlist Into the U.S. It’s all going according to plan. Robert Spencer

Posted By on August 10th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/bidens-handlers-released-324-unvetted-robert-spencer/

Biden’s catastrophically botched withdrawal from Afghanistan was bad enough in itself, diminishing America’s standing in the world and projecting an image of weakness that has encouraged and emboldened enemies of our nation worldwide. The fallout from it, however, could be incalculably worse. A Defense Department (DoD) whistleblower has revealed that 324 of the Afghans whom U.S. forces brought to the United States as the disaster in Afghanistan was unfolding appeared on the department’s Biometrically Enabled Watchlist (BEWL), which includes terrorists, and yet were admitted into the country without being vetted. No one who has been watching the spreading dumpster fire that is the Biden administration could possibly be surprised.

Senators Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) have called upon the DoD to investigate. On Thursday, they wrote to DoD Acting Inspector General Sean O’Donnell about their “concern over new allegations raised by a Department of Defense (DoD) whistleblower. This information may show the Biden Administration’s failure to vet those evacuated from Afghanistan was even worse than the public was led to believe. The following allegations demand an immediate investigation by your office.” There should indeed be an investigation, but in these days of the hyper-politicization of everything and concomitant wokeification of the government bureaucracy, a genuinely illuminating investigation is about as likely to happen as Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis getting the Democrat nomination for president in 2024.