Saturday, June 6, 2020

Candace Owens Video: I DO NOT Support George Floyd and I Refuse to See Him as a Martyr - Frontpagemag.com


by Frontpagemag.com


Floyd's family deserves justice, but turning him into a saint is a destructive mistake.




[Candace Owens' BLEXIT movement aims to uplift and empower minorities to realize the American Dream. Sign up to receive updates and explore ways to get involved: BLEXIT.COM.]

In this explosive new video, Candace Owens explains why she does not support George Floyd and refuses to see him as a secular saint. She makes it clear that it is obviously wrong how Floyd was killed by the police and that she hopes that Officer Derek Chauvin gets the justice he deserves -- just as she hopes Floyd's family gets the justice they deserve through Chauvin's punishment.

Above all, Candace issues a robust and stirring warning to her fellow black Americans about the grave mistake of turning Floyd into a shining martyr. In her profound remarks, Candace dares to break numerous taboos and tell piercing truths that the leftist guardians of acceptable opinion don’t want told.

Candace’s bold stance in these contentious times distinguishes her as one of the most courageous truth-tellers -- and freedom fighters -- of our time. Frontpage commends her for that.

Don't miss this powerful video.




Frontpagemag.com

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/candace-owens-video-i-do-not-support-george-floyd-frontpagemagcom/

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Victim culture tears up Jewish moral norms - Melanie Phillips


by Melanie Phillips

Western civilization is hanging in the balance. Don't support the twisted, amoral thinking of those who are on the way to destroying it.


The appalling rioting that followed the shocking death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer has left a trail of devastation across America. Once again, however, Jews have found themselves singled out for particular attack.

In Los Angeles, Jewish-owned stores and synagogues in Beverly Hills and the predominantly Orthodox Fairfax district were looted and defaced with anti-Jewish graffiti.

How could this Jew-hatred have occurred in what was repeatedly described as "protests" against racism? And why were so few Jewish voices raised against either this or the general destruction and violence?

In a statement by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, 130 organizations said they were "outraged" by the killing of Floyd, declared "solidarity" with the black community and called for an end to "systemic racism."

Yet they expressed no outrage about the rioting during which police officers had been shot, businesses and buildings torched and looted, and innocent people beaten up. They made no protest against the specifically targeted attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses.

In the Jewish Journal, Yonathan Reches was "pained" by the picture of "a predominantly white and highly militarized police force," which used "heavy-handed tactics to protect a synagogue from a predominantly black crowd."

The riots, he asserted, were a "natural response" to "five centuries of unfathomable subjugation," which gave "communities of color" an "undisputed moral authority to call attention to their own oppression."

An "undisputed moral authority" – to riot, burn and loot, or perpetrate anti-Semitic attacks?
In Los Angeles, Canter's Deli was one of the few Jewish businesses untouched by the riots after it posted a sign expressing solidarity with Black Lives Matter. Yet BLM is an anti-white, anti-capitalist and anti-Jewish hate group.

Four years ago, its members accused Israel of "genocide" against the Palestinians. Last weekend, BLM activists held a rally in Los Angeles at which they led chants of "disrupt white capitalism" and issued a string of expletives against Fairfax, Beverly Hills and other L.A. districts which were attacked and vandalized that night.

Astonishingly, Marc Canter, the owner of the deli, actually excused the violence. "Tensions have been very high since COVID-19 and a lot of people are out of work, so it's hard to do peaceful demonstrations with so much going on at the same time," he said.

Floyd's death was horrific. But the rioting that followed was because Antifa, Black Lives Matter and others – some of whose organizers were white – seized upon the incident as an excuse for insurrection, violence and criminality.

This has all been excused or justified by those who claim it was an explosion of rage and despair against the racism of the police and white society.

Few would deny there are instances of police racism or brutality. But as the researcher Heather MacDonald pointed out in The Wall Street Journal this week, the evidence shows it is untrue to claim that the police unfairly target black people.

Roughly a quarter of fatal police shootings are of African-Americans. This isn't surprising, even though they constitute 13% of the population, given the disproportionate number of armed black suspects encountered by the police. In 2018, they made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the United States and committed about 60% of robberies.

Last year, the police fatally shot more than twice as many unarmed white people as those who were black. A 2015 Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found that white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects. And a police officer is more than 18 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

Nevertheless, the image of a black man dying while pinned to the ground by a white police officer graphically embodies the belief that black people are victims of white racism. And victim culture, the dominant orthodoxy of the age in which assorted groups claim to be victims of the rest of the world, turns morality upside down.

That's because victims are given a moral free pass for whatever they do. So, the rioters' callous indifference towards their own victims has been denied, while those condemning the riots are denounced.

Grossly slandering all white people as innately racist, yet Antifa or BLM activists can never acknowledge their own racism against white people. That's because victim culture derives from the Marxist dogma that everything is defined by power relationships. So, racism isn't prejudice but only prejudice with power.

The powerless can never be guilty of bad things. Black people are defined as powerless victims of white people. Hence, black people can never be racist.

This moral impunity is why so many groups want to be considered victims. The one group that victim culture refuses to accept as victims, however, is the Jews.

That's because identity politics ideologues share the anti-Semitic belief that the Jews are all-powerful because they control the banks, the media, the professions and so on.

So the Jews, the most persecuted people the history of the world, are excluded from the definition of a victim.

Worse still, there's a yet deeper connection between victim culture and anti-Semitism.

Victim culture draws upon the resentful belief that the Holocaust and the claim of anti-Semitism give Jews moral impunity that allows them to get away with bad deeds, such as controlling the world in their own interests regardless of others' needs.

In other words, this assumed Jewish moral impunity is actually no more than the paranoid fantasy of anti-Semites. Victim culture, by contrast, bestows impunity for things like rioting, looting and beating up innocent people.

Which is why any attempt to point out that anti-Semitism is worse than any other racism, because it uniquely demonizes Jews as a diabolical conspiracy against the world, sends progressives into a tizzy. In order to conceal the false claims of victim culture, they must deny the true and unequivocal victimization of the Jews.

The riots are a critical inflection point for America and the West. This unprecedented orgy of violent law-breaking has been excused and even openly supported by the progressive circles which define and control Western culture.

These have displayed an inability to distinguish right from wrong, truth from lies, victim from oppressor. This moral bankruptcy has spread through American and Western society like a cultural coronavirus.

Copycat disorder spread to London this week, with demonstrations against American police "racism" descending into violence against British police guarding the prime minister's Downing Street office.

In response to the crowd's demand that the police "take a knee," the gesture of sinking to one knee pioneered by black American football players in protest against police brutality, a number of British officers proceeded to do just that. A sadder demonstration of the extent to which a demoralized British society has come off the moral and cultural rails could hardly be imagined.

Jews have a duty to stand up for right against wrong. Victim culture is based on an Orwellian moral reversal. It stands for intimidation, lies and violence masquerading as compassion and conscience. It also has the Jews firmly in its sights.

Western civilization is now hovering perilously in the balance. Too many Jews are supporting the twisted, amoral thinking of those who are on the way to destroying it. Their stance is as lemming-like as it is a betrayal of Judaism and the values that lie at the West's ethical core.

Reprinted  from JNS.org.


Melanie Phillips

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/victim-culture-tears-up-jewish-moral-norms/

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Michael Flynn Prosecution Turned on Logan Act Hoax - Jonathon Moseley


by Jonathon Moseley


Newly disclosed information means that Michael Flynn is actually innocent, not just that bad behavior by the FBI taints prosecution.



The FBI and the DoJ have very reluctantly revealed more and more information about how the Obama administration conspired to subvert democratic elections. Recent bombshell documents prove that President Barack Obama was directly involved in the conspiracy against Donald Trump. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was surprised to learn directly from Obama in the Oval Office about the anti-Trump efforts. Obama knew more about the conspiracy than Yates did. 

This week, the Uniform Services League filed a Friend of the Court brief in support of Lt. General Michael Flynn opposing his further prosecution. Philadelphia criminal defense attorney Todd Mosser authored the brief. I filed it as local counsel admitted in that Court. Todd Mosser’s excellent brief presents the law and also points out how the newly disclosed information means that Flynn is actually innocent, not just that bad behavior by the FBI taints prosecution. Mosser explains how Flynn cannot be prosecuted for perjury or contempt. 

But we discovered a lot more information than could fit reasonably in the brief. So here are some outtakes that have broader implications and concerns about our politics. 

The brief explains quickly how the public narrative is proven false by the recent revelations. Why did Judge Emmet Sullivan call Flynn a traitor? Because Robert Mueller’s Office of Special Counsel lawyers spun the false tale that Russia did a special favor for Flynn, suggesting that there was collusion. The favor? Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for supposedly meddling in the 2016 elections. (Of course, I was in Russia in 1996 when Bill Clinton was meddling in the Russian presidential elections, but never mind.) 

Unexpectedly Russia did not retaliate for the sanctions. Mueller’s attorneys lied in court and nationwide through the media that Russia did Flynn a favor, implying that there was some quid pro quo and that Flynn had promised Russia that the sanctions would be reduced or canceled once Trump took office. But the slow-rolled reveal of documents prove that to have been another Mueller lie. 

The actual transcripts of the phone calls declassified on May 29, 2020, show that Flynn never asked for anything from the Russian ambassador, but only suggested that Russia consider the future ability of the countries to work together on common threats in the Middle East. When Sergey Kislyak called back -- contrary to the Mueller lies -- he did not say that Russia had granted Flynn a favor or request. Kislyak said that Russia had considered the ideas the two had discussed that the countries would need to be able to keep working on common interests such as terrorism in the Middle East. 

Flynn never talked about the sanctions, but only Russia’s expected retaliation. Flynn accepted in these conversations that the Obama sanctions would happen and that Russia would retaliate. Flynn only mentioned that the countries face common threats and an out-of-control spiral of retaliations could hinder future cooperation. Nothing in this remotely implies that the sanctions would not stay in place.

On January 24, 2017, FBI agents pretending to just be colleagues who wanted to be updated on developments with Russia, including saying they did not understand why Russia did not retaliate, had a casual meeting with Flynn. Flynn said that he only vaguely remembered the conversations.

However, two day later the coup plotters, including Sally Yates, sought to fabricate a reason to sideline Flynn under the Logan Act, 18 U.S.C. § 953. The White House Counsel Don McGahn, Yates and relevant leaders of the FBI passionately argued that the Logan Act criminalizes any difference in policy between outgoing and incoming administrations. See Exhibit 4 to the Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Criminal Information Against the Defendant Michael T. Flynn, Interview by the Office of Special Counsel of Sally Yates, August 15, 2017, pages 8-9. In Yates’ interview with Mueller’s team, she portrays threatening the White House with very serious allegations that Flynn violated the Logan Act.


Even though Flynn did not, in fact, suggest any lessening of the Obama sanctions, the FBI and Yates lied to the White House and said he did. And they claimed that a difference in policy between the lame-duck administration prior to Inauguration Day on January 20 and the new incoming administration would be a crime. 

Yates and FBI leaders actually got Flynn fired by threatening a bogus interpretation (See Exhibit 4) of this widely-ignored statute.

But, significantly, Flynn was acting in December 2016 and January 2017 officially for the U.S. government as a member of the president-elect’s transition team and not independently on his own. See, generally, The Presidential Transition Act of 1963, P.L.88-277 (March 7, 1964).

Prior to Flynn’s conversations, the Electoral College had met on December 19, 2016, making Donald J. Trump officially the incoming President. His presidency was “vested” and certain to take place in 31 days.

According to Robert Mueller’s Statement of the Offense (Docket No. 4):
1. The Defendant, MICHAEL T. FLYNN[] served as ... a senior member of President-Elect Trump's Transition team ("Presidential Transition Team"), and as the National Security Advisor to President Trump...."
“3. … c… On or about December 29, 2016, [Flynn] called a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team (“PTT official”), who was with other senior members of the Presidential Transition Team at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss what, if anything, to communicate to the Russian Ambassador about the U.S. sanctions. On that call, Flynn and the PTT official discussed the U.S. Sanctions, including the potential impact of those sanctions on the incoming administration’s foreign policy goals. The PTT official and FLYNN also discussed that the members of the Presidential Transition Team at Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to escalate the situation.
The government concedes that Flynn was acting at all relevant times under the authority of and at the direction of the President-Elect, not as a private citizen. 

This was never a valid basis for investigating Flynn. Mueller’s team stated that “It seemed logical to her that there may be some communications between an incoming administration and their foreign partners, so the Logan Act seemed like a stretch to her,” in its interview of Mary McCord, August 10, 2017, in Exhibit 3 to Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Criminal Information Against the Defendant Michael T. Flynn, page 3 (Docket No. 198-4))

But the Logan Act focuses on “authority,” not consistency. An incoming administration is not expected to continue the same policies. Predicating an FBI investigation into the next National Security Advisor would require an interpretation of the Logan Act that has never been tested in court: Flynn lacked authority to speak to foreign officials on behalf of the duly elected incoming President. Even if one stands on when a new president is actually sworn in, an FBI investigation would be pursuing an untested concept.

Jonathon Moseley

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/michael_flynn_prosecution_turned_on_logan_act_hoax.html

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The Left's Defense of Arson and Looting as Weapons Against 'Institutionalized Racism' - Joseph Klein


by Joseph Klein

Once again, progressives maliciously elevate nationwide violence and anarchy.





Massachusetts Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey hailed the acts of arson occurring across the country as some sort of symbol of regeneration. In a speech she delivered to the Boston Chamber of Commerce on June 2nd, Healy said, "Yes, America is burning, but that's how forests grow." She later tweeted that “we must seize the opportunity we have right now to build anew in ways that rid us of the institutionalized racism that’s led to America burning today.”

Healey’s first duty as attorney general is to uphold the laws of her state and prosecute criminal violations. Arson is a serious crime. Arsonists must be arrested and prosecuted, whether they are agitators of the left or right. There is no legal defense that excuses arson because the arsonists believe they are fighting “institutionalized racism.” What’s next - that looting is a legitimate form of wealth redistribution to combat what some social justice advocates have called “racial capitalism”? It’s time to send Healey packing for inciting violence and dereliction of duty.

Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons struck the right chord with his response to Healey’s outrageous forest fire analogy:
“By choosing to highlight this insane analogy, it should be clear to Massachusetts residents that no matter what else Democrats like Attorney General Healey say, they will always condone mob tactics. The Radical Democrats, led by the likes of Attorney General Healey, sat back and watched as cities went up in flames over the weekend, and are now openly admitting that this is all part of their plan to fundamentally change America by any means possible. This is no way to honor the memory of George Floyd, or correct the problems that led to his unjustified killing.”

Some in the media also make excuses for the rioting. CNN's Chris Cuomo, for example, questioned the notion that the protests need to be peaceful. He should read the text of the First Amendment, which protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Emphasis added)

New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, who undeservedly won a Pulitzer Prize for her contribution to the historically inaccurate New York Times ‘1619 Project,’ went further. She said not to worry about the destruction of property by rioters. “Destroying property which can be replaced is not violence,” Hannah-Jones told CBS News Tuesday. “I think any reasonable person would say we shouldn’t be destroying other people’s property. But these are not reasonable times.” In an interview with CNN, Hannah-Jones referred to looting as justifiable “symbolic taking” because black communities “have been looted for decades.” She said, “I think I would not describe looting as violence.”

Apparently, it never occurred to Hannah-Jones that both black and white looters have been exploiting the George Floyd tragedy and peaceful protests to enrich themselves with stolen property. There is nothing “symbolic” about such selfish criminal acts.

What does Hannah-Jones say to the black business owners who have seen their shops go up in flames or looted?  For example, Kris Shelby, who is black, owned a store in Atlanta. “A lot of people don’t know the blood, sweat and tears that go into being a business owner and the type of sacrifices we had to go through to be where we’re at right now,” he said. Shelby sympathizes with the peaceful protesters demonstrating over George Floyd’s horrendous death at the hands of a rogue policeman. “But as a black man, and this is a black-owned business, it’s just sad,” he said about the looting. “It really leaves a bad taste in our mouths, to be honest.”

Derrick Hayes put up signs in the windows of his restaurant in downtown Atlanta that identified it as a black-owned business. That made no difference to the looters who smashed his windows. “Honestly, I was in disbelief,” Hayes said. “If we’re all in this together, let’s show that we’re all in this together.”

The dreams and livelihoods of individual black and other minority small business owners have been destroyed all over the country. But Hannah-Jones is indifferent to their plight. For her, there are no black individuals with their own individual aspirations. She believes that “black people are a collective.”  Following this absurd premise to its “logical” conclusion, an individual black who may have lost his or her life savings from wanton looting and arson should be willing to take one for the team.

Hannah-Jones said that “collective grieving for the desecration of black life is a regular, daily experience for black people in this country,” Does her “collective grieving” extend to the black retired St. Louis police captain, David Dorn, who was shot and killed while attempting to protect a neighborhood store from looters? All that Hannah-Jones did in noting Dorn’s murder was to retweet, without comment, a CNN report. She would have shown more respect for Dorn if she at least had retweeted this statement by the Ethical Society of Police, a black police union in St. Louis, which it wrote on Facebook: "Looters murdered him at a pawnshop last night. He was the type of brother that would’ve given his life to save them if he had to. Violence like this is not the answer, whether it’s a citizen or officer."

Hannah-Jones is provided a regular platform at the New York Times for her viewpoint, most notably the 1619 Project, which posits that American history and exceptionalism can only be understood through the lens of slavery. Yet she and other New York Times writers were aghast at the newspaper’s publication of an op-ed column by Republican Senator Tom Cotton that excoriated the criminals “simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction.” Senator Cotton suggested that if necessary federal troops should be used to stop them. Hannah-Jones tweeted, ”As a black woman, as a journalist, as an American, I am deeply ashamed that we ran this.”

After first defending its decision to publish the op-ed article in order to provide its readers with a different point of view, the New York Times surrendered to the leftwing mob mentality within its own staff. It apologized for its “rushed editorial process” and running the op-ed article that “did not meet our standards.” Those standards are now dictated by the “woke” ideology under which whites must atone for the sins of past generations going back to the first white slaveholder. They must purge their white privilege by submitting to the dismantling of a society built completely on institutionalized racism, according to this ideology. Progressive Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has chosen to embrace this ideology in lieu of her fealty to the rule of law. She has plenty of company in academia, the media, and Hollywood.

Blacks who don’t bow down to the "woke" rulers are pilloried. Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has spoken out strongly against racial profiling from his own personal experience. But he chooses to be an individual with his own opinions rather than a cog in the black “collective.” As a result, he has been called Uncle Tom and far worse by the “woke” left.

On June 3rd, Senator Scott tweeted, “My heart is broken over the events of the last week, from the needless murder of #GeorgeFloyd, to the tragic death of retired St. Louis police captain #DavidDorn. When it comes to race and justice in this nation, solutions are needed now.” The senator tweeted on May 31st, “For those who believe that violence is a way to react, this is selfishness, and we do not tolerate this. Protest, be heard, be seen, and be peaceful. Stand for justice for #GeorgeFloyd, but please do it in order. How we conduct ourselves creates a path for the future.”

Senator Scott stands with the large mainstream of Americans of all races who are capable of distinguishing between peaceful protests decrying the brutal murder of George Floyd and acts of looting and destruction that serve no purpose but self-gratification. The “woke” progressives live in their own perpetual nightmare of an inherently evil, racist United States that is leading them to inflict destruction on our nation's ordered liberty and the institutions that preserve it.

* * *
Photo credit: Mstyslav Chernov/Unframe


Joseph Klein

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/defense-arson-and-looting-weapons-against-joseph-klein/

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Palestinian Authority: Hamas is illegally taking over land, taxing residents - Dalit Halevy


by Dalit Halevy

Palestinian Authority news outlet blames Hamas for taking over land, demanding a fee from those on unregistered land.


Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas                                                                                                              Reuters

The Palestinian Authority news outlet Wafa has blamed the Hamas terror organization for illegally taking over tens of thousands of dunams of land which belongs to residents, and taxing anyone who does not possess land registration documents.

According to the Wafa report, Hamas prepared for this purpose a committee headed by Hamas' Land Authority Chairman Maher Abu Sabha, and prepared a plan for taking over tens of thousands of dunams which are considered to be unregistered land, in order to resell them to residents while giving preference to those who are already using the land.

The report also said that the Hamas terror organization decided that the owners of the land must pay sums of between 8,000 and 50,000 dinar per dunam, and that anyone who built a home on land which is unregistered must pay a fee to Hamas' treasury.

Wafa also claimed that during the years of its reign in Gaza, Hamas took over government land and distributed thousands of dunams to its own senior officials, especially in areas which were declared to be "tourism" areas on the Gaza beach.


Dalit Halevy

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/281419

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One retired Marine isn't putting up with Mattis's nonsense - Andrea Widburg


by Andrea Widburg

It's a mean letter, and Mattis deserves every word of it.


Ret. Marine general James Mattis, who served as Trump's defense secretary, resigned over a year ago but has apparently been nursing a grudge since then. Last week, he took to the pages of the left-wing Atlantic magazine to air that grievance.

Mattis revealed a small mind. His facts were wrong and his arguments foolish and simplistic. The Democrat media, of course, celebrated the article despite its fundamental flaws. Retired Marine captain John M. Dowd, however, decided that he wasn't going to sit there and take that nonsense, so he struck back. What he wrote is red meat for conservatives and Trump-supporters.

To understand what Mattis wrote for the Atlantic, you have to know that while he does love the Marines, he's a leftist at heart. He supports the global warming agenda, is hostile to Israel, shied away from fights with the mullahs, wanted so-called transgenders in the military, wouldn't leave Afghanistan, and ultimately quit because he wanted to keep U.S. troops in Syria (reminder: the disaster leftists predicted for Trump's pullout never materialized).

If you need more evidence that Mattis is a leftist politician, he hung out with limousine leftists:

It came as no surprise to those who understand the real Mattis, rather than the propaganda version, that he was smarting at his inability to drive Trump into the arms of the Deep State and is worried that Trump will be re-elected. That's why he decided to use the Atlantic to denounce Trump as a threat to the Constitution. So he authored an insanely stupid manifesto.

The manifesto opens with Mattis calling looted stores, burning cities, and dead police officers "a small number of lawbreakers." He ignores the fact that Trump has done nothing to stop the protesters from having their say and has, in fact, completely respected federalism by leaving the states to handle matters, warning only that if chaos threatens, he has the legal authority to step in and will do so.

Mattis's little lecture about using the military carefully is redundant. Trump knows and has already acted consistently with this knowledge.

Mattis blathers on about Trump fostering disunity, ignoring that leftists have played "resistance" theater since Trump's election. Mattis seemingly missed the inauguration day marches, the spying, the Russia hoax, the Kavanaugh slander, the Ukraine hoax, Pelosi ripping up Trump's State of the Union speech, etc. The attacks have never stopped, but Trump has still managed to focus on the American people's welfare.

As if to prove that he now hangs out only with leftists, Mattis concludes with Trump's walk across the park to a historic church that "peaceful protesters" had tried to burn to the ground. To Mattis, this was an abuse of presidential power. Sigh. If the lunkheaded former general expanded his friendship circle, he'd know that the park service had no contact with Trump and was fighting back against protesters pelting officers with dangerous projectiles.

Mattis may also be part of yet another, broader resistance attempt. There's a rumor afoot that Anderson Cooper is planning to attack Trump through a town hall with leftist military men who hate him:

Cooper doesn't understand that conservatives will not be impressed. They really hate leftist officers, for they understand that these men are political panderers, the lowest of the low.

Still, military men have each other's backs, so until a couple of days ago, there was no pushback from people who ought to recognize Mattis for the Benedict Arnold he is. Finally, though, retired Marine captain John M. Dowd, a former Marine Corps judge advocate and a Trump attorney, had enough. He wrote a letter aimed directly at Mattis's honor.

Dowd's letter is savage. You can tell that it was written in a white-hot passion. He talks about Obama's forcing divisions on the country, about the revolting attacks Democrats have launched at Trump every day, and about Trump's prison reform being better for the black community than anything Obama did. Then he goes in for the kill, directly castigating Mattis for being too much of a political coward to take out Qassem Soleimani, even as the Iranian general was killing American troops all over the Middle East. It's a mean letter, and Mattis deserves every word of it.

Jim:
I slept on your statement and woke up appalled and upset. You lost me. Never dreamed you would let a bunch of hack politicians use your good name and reputation – earned with the blood and guts of young Marines.
You did what you said you would – engage in this discourse. Marines keep their word.
The phony protesters near Lafayette park were not peaceful and are not real. They are terrorists using idle hate-filled students to burn and destroy. They were abusing and disrespecting the police when the police were preparing the area for the 1900 curfew. Jim, this is the new nihilism. See Dan Henninger in WSJ today.
Marines support the police in harm's way.
Did you forget that President Bush used active duty Marines to quell the riots in LA? President Trump has countless cities and some snowflake governors and mayors wetting themselves in the use of force to protect innocent lives and property. The AG of Massachusetts thinks burning property is good protest. Three more policemen were stabbed and shot in NYC last night.
Think about it. Should he be upset about the obvious failure of leadership? Where are you Jim?
Marines go to the fight.
No one divided this country more than Obama. He abandoned our black brothers and sisters. He gave guns to the cartels. He apologized for our precious sacrifice and generosity overseas. You remember, he fired you.
President Trump has done more to help our minority brothers and sisters in three years than anyone in the last fifty. Ask the black pastors. Ask the leaders of the black colleges and universities. He got them funded. Ask them about the prison reform which ended the draconian sentences imposed on young black men by the laws enacted by Biden and his hacks. You need to bone up on your homework and stop listening to Uncle Leon.
I understand, you had to stick to the assigned narrative which did not include three years of corrupt investigations and evidence to destroy the President, his office, and his lawful free election. Nancy has no tolerance for dissent in the ranks – including those with stars.
You said nothing of the ugly, hate filled, disgraceful comments of Pelosi, Schumer, Perez and other Democrat hacks defaming the President and his office. You said nothing of the unlawful sanctuary cities and the unlawful release of hoodlums. You said nothing of the resistance movement to paralyze our courts and our government operations. You said nothing of the obstruction and subversion of our immigration laws. You said nothing of MS-13 killers and the drug cartels who own huge sections of our major cities. Jim, do you thin that hateful rhetoric and those corrupt actions were inspiring and unifying? Do you think the DI's at Parris Island would find such behavior as unifying?
Maybe, your problem, is a lot deeper. Perhaps you ought to explain how and why you (and John Allen), as CG Central Command, did not engage and take out Iranian Major General Soleimani who roamed the Middle East and wreaked havoc and death of our American boys with his infamous IEDs?
Why did it take President Trump to have the instincts and balls to take him out (of course over the objection of the geniuses in the Pentagon)?
Looks like the Persian mullahs were a one horse sleigh and Trump nailed the horse . . . forever. It has been quiet ever since. Perhaps, your anger is borne of embarrassment for your own failure as the leader of Central Command. Did you applaud when the President recognized the central problem in the middle east? Did you applaud the President when he wanted to save American lives by bringing them home in one piece?
John M Dowd

Andrea Widburg

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/one_retired_marine_isnt_putting_up_with_mattiss_nonsense.html

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Palestinians in Turkey: What Erdogan Says vs. What Erdogan Does - Khaled Abu Toameh


by Khaled Abu Toameh

If [Erdogan] really wants to help the Palestinians, he can stop playing host and cash cow to Hamas, a terrorist group that has brought nothing but misery to Palestinians and Israelis alike.

  • While Erdogan is paying lip service to the Palestinian cause and praising Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by the US, EU, Canada and Australia, Palestinian refugees who fled to Turkey from Syria are complaining of discrimination and mistreatment by the Turkish authorities.
  • According to Palestinian sources, there are about 10,000 Palestinian refugees in Turkey who are suffering from discrimination and living in dire conditions.
  • The suffering of the Palestinian refugees fleeing Syria begins the moment they arrive at the border with Turkey, Thuri Tamim, a Palestinian refugee, told the Palestinian Refugees Portal, an independent website covering news related to Palestinian refugees.
  • If Erdogan really wants to help the Palestinians, he can start by ordering his government to stop arresting and harassing Palestinian refugees. If he really wants to help the Palestinians, he can stop playing host and cash cow to Hamas, a terrorist group that has brought nothing but misery to Palestinians and Israelis alike.

Recently, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and assured him of Turkey's "solidarity" with the Palestinian cause, pledging to support the Palestinians in "all fields." But instead of welcoming the Palestinians fleeing from the civil war in Syria, Erdogan is humiliating them and trying to throw them into prison. Pictured: Erdogan (right) hosts Abbas in his palace in Ankara on January 12, 2015. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan excels at making statements in support of the Palestinians. His actions, however, suggest quite a different attitude about the plight of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled to Turkey from Syria in the past two years.

For a start, Erdogan does not even recognize these refugees as Palestinian -- although they carry ID cards issued by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as well as other documents defining them as Palestinian.

Erdogan considers these refugees Syrian, not Palestinian, because they arrived from Syria and their temporary travel documents were issued by either the Syrian government or UNRWA.

All the same, recently Erdogan chatted on the phone with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and assured him of Turkey's "solidarity" with the Palestinian cause. Erdogan reportedly told Abbas that Turkey will continue to support the Palestinians in "all fields."

Erdogan has long boasted of his support for Hamas and said he does not regard it as a terrorist organization. "Hamas," Erdogan said during an official visit to London in May 2018, "is one of the resistance movements working to liberate the occupied territories of the Palestinians."

In a May 24 video message on the occasion of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, Erdogan repeated Turkey's support for the Palestinians. "We will not allow the Palestinian lands to be offered to anyone else," he said, referring to Israel's intention to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank. "Last week we witnessed that a new occupation and annexation project, which disregards Palestine's sovereignty and international law, was put into action by Israel."

In September 2019, Erdogan made yet another passionate pro-Palestinian speech at the UN General Assembly. "Turkey will continue to stand by the oppressed people of Palestine as it has always done so until today," he said as he again spouted hate against Israel and its leaders.

Erdogan even managed to impress former Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who sent a letter thanking him for speaking "on behalf of all persecuted Muslims in the world."

When Erdogan was re-elected as Turkey's president in the 2018 general election, many Palestinians, including Abbas and Hamas leaders, were quick to congratulate him on the victory.

Izzat al-Risheq, a member of the Hamas "political bureau," expressed hope that Erdogan's success would increase Turkish support for the Palestinians. Another Hamas official, Hazem Qassem, said:
"Hamas is congratulating Erdogan for the success of the democratic experiment and for winning the presidential election. Hamas wants to build relations with regional countries such as Turkey and wants it to stand by the right of the Palestinian people to confront Israeli aggression."
Erdogan has indeed been supportive of some Palestinians -- mainly, Hamas and its Palestinian leaders, some of whom live in Turkey.

A December 2019 report in the British daily The Telegraph revealed that Erdogan was "playing host" to Hamas. From Turkey, the Palestinian terror group, according to the report, has been plotting attacks against Israel.

The activities of Hamas, the report said, include efforts to recruit suicide bombers -- with a reward of $20,000 promised to the families of the terrorists -- and to assassinate senior Israeli officials.

In the past two years, several Hamas delegations have visited Turkey for meetings with Erdogan and senior Turkish government functionaries.

While Erdogan is paying lip service to the Palestinian cause and praising Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by the US, EU and Canada and Australia, Palestinian refugees who fled to Turkey from Syria are complaining of discrimination and mistreatment by the Turkish authorities.

While portraying himself as the defender of the Palestinians and of the holy Islamic sites in Jerusalem, Erdogan is also depriving thousands of Palestinian refugees of basic rights, including access to education and medical care.

Last week, Palestinian activists launched a campaign to try to solve the legal problems facing Palestinian refugees in Turkey. The activists said that Palestinian refugees who fled from Syria are required to report to Turkish security authorities once every two weeks. The Turkish authorities, the activists complained, were refusing to issue official documentation for Palestinian children whose parents have failed to settle their legal status in the country. As a result, the children are being denied access to schools and medical care.

According to Palestinian sources, there are about 10,000 Palestinian refugees in Turkey who are suffering from discrimination and living in dire conditions.

The biggest surprise for the Palestinians refugees, however, came when they noticed that the Turkish authorities were labeling them as Syrian citizens.

By registering them as Syrians, the Turkish authorities have put the Palestinian refugees in an impossible position. When Turkish authorities later check their documents and discover that they hold Palestinian passports although they have been labeled Syrians, the refugees are accused of forgery and face imprisonment or deportation.

The suffering of the Palestinian refugees fleeing Syria begins the moment they arrive at the border with Turkey, Thuri Tamim, a Palestinian refugee, told the Palestinian Refugees Portal, an independent website covering news related to Palestinian refugees.
"Most of [the Palestinians] who entered Turkey illegally were arrested by the Turkish border guards. When they introduced themselves as Palestinians and presented their UNRWA-issued ID cards, they were imprisoned for 30-45 days."
Tamim pointed out that Palestinian refugees who fled from to Turkey from Syria are experiencing "legal marginalization." He and other Palestinian refugees said they found it bizarre that that the Turkish authorities do not recognize Palestinian refugees carrying Syrian documents as actually Palestinian.

Another Palestinian activist, Mohammed Omar, said that Turkey's laws on refugees have made life unlivable for the Palestinians. "The Palestinian passport cannot be used for obtaining work permits, renting a home or receiving various services such as water, gas and electricity," Omar lamented. The plight of the Palestinian refugees, he added, has only intensified in the past few months, during the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead of welcoming the Palestinians fleeing from the civil war in Syria, Erdogan is humiliating them and trying to throw them into prison.

If Erdogan really wants to help the Palestinians, he can start by ordering his government to stop arresting and harassing Palestinian refugees. If he really wants to help the Palestinians, he can stop playing host and cash cow to Hamas, which has brought nothing but misery to Palestinians. As far as Erdogan is concerned, the Palestinians are just another card he seems to be using to advance his goal of becoming the "Sultan of all Muslims."
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Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16086/palestinians-turkey-erdogan

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May 4th Movement and June 4th Movement - Wei Jingsheng


by Wei Jingsheng

The goal of the 1989 Democracy Movement has won the support of most Chinese people, so it is only a matter of time before it is achieved.




The May 4th Movement in 1919 and the June 4th Movement in 1989 have many similarities and differences. The first similarity is patriotism, both campaigns were under the banner of patriotism. But the patriotism of the May 4th Movement was a patriotism against foreigners, while the patriotism of the June 4th Movement wasn't. In 1919, it was foreigners who bullied China during the May 4th Movement; in contrast, during the June 4th Massacre, people found out that it was the Chinese government that bullied the Chinese people.

One of the biggest differences between these two was whether one believes in the government or not. The young intellectuals of the May 4th Movement in 1919 did not believe in their government, and launched a campaign against the government. The young intellectuals in 1989 acted as they were against the government, while being in support of the Chinese government in reality. Therefore, young intellectuals in May 4th, 1919, were more real and bolder than students in 1989, due to their rights to speak were more guaranteed.

The biggest commonality between the May 4th Movement and the June 4th Movement were that both held high the banner of democracy and freedom. After that, the trend of Chinese ideology must also hold high the banner of democracy and freedom. Otherwise it will not be supported by Chinese intellectuals. Even the Chinese Communist Party that pursues authoritarianism, holds high the banner of democracy and freedom. Not only did it appear outside the party under the slogan of democracy and freedom, but also the banner of democracy and freedom was held high within the party, in order to gain the following of most literati who can read but do not really understand communism. Many children of this generation of communist intellectuals take names of freedom, universal suffrage, civil rights, etc.

Since the May 4th Movement, two different democracies and freedoms parted ways and started to compete. One is Western-style democracy with a representative system as the basic model. Its laws advocate equality for all, and democracy covers all citizens. Its economic system is based on private property and regulates a huge society through the market. The other is communist democracy based on Marx's theory. Its basic model is to use one class to oppress members of other classes. Its economic system claims to be owned by all the people, distributed evenly, and regulates a huge society with the plan by a government with concentrated power.

Representative democracy has equal rights, but its inequality of the market economy is open, visible and theoretically determined. The partial democracy of the Communist Party does not seem fair, but it claims to include most people. Its communist plan looks fair in theory. Therefore, in peacetime, communism is not very attractive to the Chinese society that was used to a market economy. It was only attractive to a few intellectuals who don't care about daily lives in people's homes.

Therefore, before the Sino-Japanese War, the communist ideology of property equality and most people oppressing a few was only popular among a few intellectuals in China. Even if the focus was shifted to the countryside, only a few of the poorest people would actively accept it. Most peasants, including many relatively poorer peasants, did not accept the idea of communism, except the idea of equally dividing the land. The Communist Party's Agrarian Revolutionary War was unsuccessful and was almost wiped out in just a few years.

It was a protracted Sino-Japanese war that produced a large number of urban and rural poor. The Chinese Communist Party has also learned to hide its communist nature and won the support of most intellectuals and peasants with its pretended democracy and market economy. Finally, a system of one-party dictatorship and a planned economy was established. The economic essence of this system is a replica of feudal serfdom. The so-called class dictatorship would inevitably move towards a one-party dictatorship or even a dictatorship by a few people.

In 1979, under the resistance of the Chinese people, the economic system of feudal serfdom was overthrown in China. However, the Chinese Communist Party found that the traditional Chinese model of managing the market economy with an authoritarian regime can be used as a reference to maintain the communist one-party dictatorship. Of course, the Chinese people and the foreign experts on China who do not understand China were still fooled with its claim of reforming politics. The pain caused by the continuation of the one-party dictatorship, coupled with the huge inequality brought by half-way economic reforms, was the social basis for the 1989 democratic movement.

The democratic movement 31 years ago pointed out the goal of abolishing the one-party dictatorship for the Chinese people. Although it was suppressed after a huge bloody sacrifice, its clear ideological goals are the direction of the Chinese people's efforts in the future. Today, the retrograde actions of the Chinese Communist regime at home and abroad are a manifestation that this deformed system cannot be sustained. The goal of the 1989 Democracy Movement has won the support of most Chinese people, so it is only a matter of time before it is achieved.


Wei Jingsheng

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16088/may-4th-movement-june-4th-movement

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Chinese at the Gates - Michael Ledeen


by Michael Ledeen

Washington is awash with rumors of millions of Hong Kong residents moving to America.




The Chinese are at our gates, eagerly rewriting the laws against civic disobedience within Hong Kong. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is supporting the people of Hong Kong who support democracy:
U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo said on June 1 that the United States is worried that if Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam cancels the elections or postpones them “that there would be violence or something like that, which is just unfounded.”
“The Hong Kongers have held successful elections for years and years, so we are urging Hong Kong to continue to move forward for those,” he said during an interview with American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

The elections are currently scheduled for the first week in September, and there are fears of violence as Hong Kong moves toward assimilation with mainland China. Washington is awash with rumors of millions of Hong Kong residents moving to America. The head of the pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong, Joshua Wong, faced a grim future:
Joshua Wong—the iconic activist from Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Movement and secretary-general of pro-democracy party Demosistō—told AEI in an interview (pdf) on May 12 that since the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong won 85 percent of the seats in local district council elections “it is possible for the pro-democracy camp to take the majority in the Hong Kong Legislative Council” as well.
Wong is concerned that the new national security law may allow Beijing to “just override the principle of procedural justice and to disqualify as many candidates as they can” in the upcoming election.
“Some of the youngsters, including me and Agnes Chow from Demosistō, applied to run for office, but being censored out from the ballot, and we are not allowed to run for office,” Wong said.

The last elections produced a spectacular result in favor of pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong, more than 70 per cent in favor. It calls to mind the massive turnout in East Germany in favor of the breakup of the wall, which was followed shortly afterwards by the end of the wall itself. 

It’s inconceivable that there could be another pro-democracy landslide in Hong Kong. If any big surprises are in store for us, we could see a revived Nipponese militarism, featuring a rearmed Japan, rallying to the side of the pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong. For many years I have warned of basic sea changes around the world, and the tempo of such changes is speeding up rapidly. The news of Japanese rearmament is important, and marks a major turning point.

We have to remind ourselves that Japan was long the major military power in the region, and that China, despite its enormous population advantage, constantly lost to the Japanese on the battlefield. The Japanese do not have an inferiority complex towards the Chinese, and they will be preparing to fight, and defeat, Beijing.

It should be quite a battle.

The Chinese are accordingly infiltrating US institutions, ranging from businesses, universities, and military units to high-powered university campuses, and on to international consultancies, and it is only recently that our leaders have picked up on the threat. Indeed, of the multiple scandals that beset the Trump Administration, perhaps the greatest is that it has taken the Republicans three years to get at it. The investigations—headed by Senator Lindsay Graham—begin tomorrow at 10 o’clock, and are scheduled to include former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

It’s important to keep the starting points clear. Chinese armed forces have long been powerful more on a quantitative basis than on a qualitative one. Looked at traditionally, the so-called Japanese “se;f-defense forces” have long been in the top rungs in the world.
So the game is open. Japanese industry is fully engaged in the project with famous brands like Mitsubishi, Toshiba and NEC, which guarantees the Army, Navy and Air Force equipment of top quality. There is a new law that permits the Japanese to send its armed forces overseas if requested by an ally, or if required to thwart a Chinese advance.
The new law ends an extended period in recent Japanese history and might well cause significant military and political shifts throughout the Middle East. Indeed, it ends the period of unilateral pacifism that the allies imposed on the Rising Sun after the end of the Second World War.

The American Secretary of State will blame the transformation of Hong Kong on the Chinese Communists, having seen first-hand that the vast majority of Hong Kongers want freedom.
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Photo credit: Wallpaperflare.


Michael Ledeen

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/chinese-gates-michael-ledeen/

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