Return of the Blacklist: The Left Shuts Down Free Speech - Ed Brodow

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by Ed Brodow

The organs of the left have one thing in common: they are against free speech.

It was only a matter of time.  Mimicking what leftists themselves might call McCarthyism, the left is demanding a blacklist of those who oppose its political ideology.  Dani Rodrik, professor of international political economy at that bastion of leftism, Harvard University, has urged the academic world to stop offering jobs or honors to anyone who has served in the Trump administration.  This ought not to come as a surprise.  It reflects what author Mark Levin calls "the fascist, totalitarian mindset that is modern academia."

Rodrik insists that universities "should uphold both free inquiry and the values of liberal democracy." Then, in a clear demonstration of leftist hypocrisy, he insults those values by demanding that Trump's supporters be placed on a blacklist.  They should be prohibited, he says, from receiving "even a semblance of honor or recognition" from "the gatekeepers of higher learning."

Rodrik, who advocates income redistribution and opposes the free market system, accuses Trump of running an "odious presidency."  "We do not, after all, have a normal administration that can be served honorably[.] ... Those who serve with him are necessarily tainted by the experience."  No exceptions.  "Having served in this 'odious' administration," reports HotAir.com, "you should now be barred for life from any form of service in academia."

Like its fellow travelers the New York Times and the Democratic Party, Harvard has lost its credibility.  These organs of the left have one thing in common: they are against free speech.  In spite of Rodrik's phony defense of "free inquiry," try to get hired at Harvard if you espouse conservative ideas.  A respected poll has pegged liberal faculty at four-year colleges and universities at 87 percent.  Another study identified Democrats to Republicans in journalism departments of 1,500 universities at 20-1, and a whopping 33.5-1 in history departments.  Today's college campuses have become fueling stations for the left.

How did this happen?  According to Ben Shapiro, author of Bullies, college administrators decided in the 1960s that it was "easier to appease rampaging leftist students than to deal with them.  They came to an agreement with the wildebeests: stop taking over the buildings and locking the doors, and we'll start teaching you about how America sucks." Gradually, that translated into liberalism becoming a prerequisite for getting hired.  Many campuses require new faculty members to sign a diversity statement.  "What diversity oaths seek," says Walter E. Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, "is to maintain political conformity among the faculty indoctrinating our impressionable, intellectually immature young people.  The last thing that diversity hustlers want," Williams concludes, "is diversity in ideas."

Intellectual freedom on campus is flirting with extinction.  When I attended college, students demanded more freedom of expression.  Today's students, says Scott Greer in No Campus for White Men, demand less freedom and actually want to limit free expression.  Political correctness on campus is giving rise to a new generation poised to throw free speech out the window.  Activists believe that free speech is their exclusive province.  Contrary opinions are oppressive and labeled hate speech.  "Campus leftists," says Greer, "are able to suppress all dissenting speech for the supposed good of mankind."

Academia has "invented a labyrinth of anti-free speech tools," says political commentator Kirsten Powers, that are "weapons to silence anyone who expresses a view that deviates from the left's worldview or ideology."  George Orwell warned about this problem in Nineteen Eighty-Four.  The U.S. experienced a taste of it in the 1950s as Joseph McCarthy tried to shut down communists in the upper echelons of American society.  Now the left is getting revenge by attempting to silence the right.

Because Harvard wields a great deal of influence, Rodrik's proposal will be taken seriously by other campuses around the country – most of which are controlled by the left.  What can be done to prevent an intercollegiate blacklist?  David Horowitz, author of Big Agenda, urges a campaign that will force universities to add "intellectual and political diversity" into their mission statements.  This might compel them to hire conservative professors for a long overdue change.

The alternative is a disturbing view of the possible social and political discourse in America's future.  If academia imposes a blacklist on conservatives, will the corporate world and government agencies be next?  The kids marching today to shut down Trump-supporters or anyone else they don't like, says Scott Greer, could well be the senators, judges, and newspaper editors of tomorrow.  "Give me four years to teach the children," said Lenin, "and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."

Ed Brodow is a political commentator, negotiation expert, and author of seven books including his latest, Tyranny of the Minority: How the Left Is Destroying America.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/return_of_the_blacklist_the_left_shuts_down_free_speech.html

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Official: Trump and Putin agreed to get Iran out of Syria - Israel Hayom Staff

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by Israel Hayom Staff

U.S. administration official tells Bloomberg that Russian leadership believes securing Iran's withdrawal will be difficult • Leaders also said they would ensure Israel's security.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly agreed in principle that Iranian forces should exit Syria when they met in Helsinki in July, according to a U.S. administration official familiar with the meeting.

However, the official told Bloomberg that the Russian leadership said securing Iran's withdrawal from Syria would be difficult.

Trump and Putin also discussed the ongoing campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group, the dispute over Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights and the humanitarian situation in Syria, the official told Bloomberg.

According to the Bloomberg report, Trump briefed his chief of staff, John Kelly, National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman for 15 minutes immediately after meeting one-on-one with Putin.

At the July summit, much of the focus was directed at Trump's refusal to back the assessments of the U.S. intelligence community over Putin's denials of Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Trump subsequently said he misspoke and that he did believe the American intelligence community's assessment.

During their meeting, the two leaders said their countries would work together to ensure Israel's security.

The Russian leader said that during the "very successful" one-on-one meeting, Trump placed a special emphasis on maintaining Israel's security.

Netanyahu welcomed the U.S.'s "deep commitment," his office said in a statement after the summit.

The prime minister "greatly appreciates the security coordination between Israel and Russia and expressed the clear position to President Putin on the need to maintain the separation agreements between Israel and Syria in 1974," the statement said.

Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/08/17/official-trump-and-putin-agreed-to-get-iran-out-of-syria/

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The Future of Eastern Syria and the Israeli Interest - Jonathan Spyer

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by Jonathan Spyer

Israel’s interest in this is clear. Maintenance of the east Syria enclave and the base at al-Tanf means keeping a substantial physical obstacle to the Iranian hope for a contiguous ‘corridor.’

The war between the Assad regime in Syria and the largely Sunni Arab uprising against it, which began in March 2011, is now in its closing stages. The last independent rebel enclaves in parts of Deraa and Quneitra provinces have ceased to be. As of now, the rebellion remains in two parts of the country. In both of these areas, the rebels can maintain themselves only because their presence is supported by an outside power. 

The two areas are the US base at al-Tanf and the surrounding area, and the Turkish-maintained area of control extending from Jarabulus on the Syrian Turkish border, westwards to include the Afrin area and then south to Idleb Province. 

The medium-to-long-term existence of these enclaves is far from assured, but in any case, they represent a transition in the civil war in which rebel fighters are no longer pursuing a political project of their own. They have of necessity become contractors working for foreign powers with their own projects in Syria. 

The situation reflects a sea change in the Syrian dynamic. The Assad regime is no longer under threat. Thanks to Iranian and Russian assistance, its survival is now assured. It remains, however, in possession of only 60% of the territory of Syria. The largest area now outside of regime control is the 30% of the country under the control of the US-supported, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SPD). The Syrian situation is now dependent on the decisions and the rivalries of outside powers, not primarily on the wishes of Syrians on all sides. In the case of the 30% of Syria controlled by the SDF, its future is dependent on the US. 

If the US chooses to quit eastern Syria, the SDF will have little choice but to negotiate their surrender with the authorities in Damascus. Failure to do so will leave them vulnerable either to the fate of their comrades in Afrin – invasion by Turkey, or to that of the rebels in Ghouta, Deraa and Quneitra – forceful reoccupation at the hands of the regime/Iran/Russia. 

In late July, I travelled to the SDF enclave in eastern Syria, visiting Raqqa City, Manbij, Qamishli, Ein Issa and Kobani. The intention was to gauge the sentiment among both officials and ordinary people regarding the present state of affairs in Syria, and in particular regarding the prospect of the regime’s return. 

The first thing that strikes a visitor to this part of Syria is the relatively peaceful and orderly atmosphere. I visited all parts of Syria during the war (except for the ISIS area of control). Rebel areas were always characterized by chaos. Your security was dependent on the authority of the particular rebel group with which you were connected. In the regime-controlled areas, one is immediately aware of being in a totalitarian state, in which the power of the authorities has penetrated every human interaction and normal straightforward dialogue with strangers is impossible. While the SDF-controlled area is no democratic paradise, it is qualitatively different in atmosphere.

However, one still has to be careful. The regime, in its visible form, is not entirely gone from the SDF-controlled spaces. In the cities of Qamishli and Hasakeh, Assad’s forces are deployed in “security squares,” i.e., areas of regime military control, supplied via the regime-controlled military airport at Qamishli. Traveling west of Qamishli requires a careful traversing of the city to avoid these enclaves. Foreigners straying too close to them have been detained by Assad’s newlyconfident soldiers in recent weeks. 

The SDF-controlled area looks more secure than it is. In Raqqa and Manbij, the civic councils are functioning, the SDF and Asayish security police checkpoints are as ubiquitous and efficient as ever. But underneath the apparent normality, there is anxiety. The question on everyone’s lips is, “Are the Americans staying?” There is no easy answer. 

In March 2018, US President Donald Trump vowed to bring home American troops within the year. There are 2,000 declared US Special Forces personnel in the SDF-controlled area. The real number is probably twice that. Trump’s statement added to the sense of insecurity. 

SDF officials and their civilian counterparts in the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) remain, at least for public consumption, optimistic about the possibility of a long-term American presence to underwrite their enclave. 

Aldar Khalil, one of the top officials in the enclave, said, “It is not logical that the US will leave immediately or soon. After ISIS, the US will fight Iran. And they will fight Iran within Syria.”

From this point of view, the SDF enclave, which emerged as part of the war against ISIS, would be integrated into an emergent US strategy to contain and push back the Iranians. “Many projects are in Syria – that of the Turks, of the Russians, of the Iranians. The Americans see us as the least dangerous, the most moderate,” added Khalil. 

Mustafa Bali, chief media officer of the SDF, concurred: “US interests require them to be here,” speaking at a dusty SDF base in the town of Ein Issa. “The US is concerned about the Iranian crescent (meaning the desire of the Iranians for a contiguous line of control stretching from the Iraq-Iran border via Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea).”

As SDF spokesman Nuri Mahmoud notes, “We have been in a coalition with the US since the Kobani battle. There has been media speculation regarding imminent withdrawal. Putin also once said that his forces were leaving, but the opposite took place. Syria today is a place of international confrontation in which all forces seek to strengthen their allies on the ground. The US will not leave Syria without stability on the ground. We see no evidence of imminent withdrawal.”

These sentiments are to a degree supported by the latest statements of US officials. Defense Secretary James Mattis, speaking in early June, said, “As the operations ultimately draw to a close, we must avoid leaving a vacuum in Syria that can be exploited by the Assad regime or its supporters.”

A report in the Times of London on July 27, meanwhile, cited “Gulf sources” as confirming that President Trump in his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki that US troops would remain in Syria until Iranian forces withdrew. 

The Times article also noted that National Security Advisor John Bolton told ABC News that US forces would remain “as long as the Iranian menace continues throughout the Middle East.” This sounds like a commitment that ought to offer reassurance to Washington’s Kurdish allies. 

Actions, however, are a better guide than sentiments, and it appears that the SDF/SDC leaders remain skeptical regarding US long-term plans. Last week, the first direct negotiations took place between their representatives and those of the Assad regime in Damascus. 

It is not quite clear where things are heading. But Israel’s interest in this is clear. Maintenance of the east Syria enclave and the base at al-Tanf means keeping a substantial physical obstacle to the Iranian hope for a contiguous ‘corridor.’ It would also prevent an overall Iranian triumph in the war and give the West a place at the table in any substantive political negotiation over Syria’s future. 

Israel should hence make its voice heard via all available channels in Washington, in both the executive and the legislature, in support of the maintenance of the SDF enclave in eastern Syria. 

Specifically, efforts should be made to ensure a formal US declaration of a no-fly zone for regime and regime-allied aircraft east of the Euphrates. This move, reminiscent of the no-fly zone declared over Iraqi Kurdistan after the Gulf War of 1991, would with one stroke ensure the continued viability of the SDF-controlled area. There should also be a formal recognition of the SDF zone, or the ‘Democratic Federation of Northern Syria,’ as it is formally known. This entity is not seeking independence from Damascus, so Western concerns regarding the formal breakup of Syria need not be raised by such a move. 

As the strategic contest between Iran and its allies and the US and its allies in the Middle East moves into high gear, it is essential that the West maintain its alliances and investments and behaves and is seen to behave as a credible and loyal patron and ally. Eastern Syria currently constitutes a testing ground for this. In Qamishli, Kobani and other hard defended zones, its people await the West’s decision.


Jonathan Spyer is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and a research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Strategic Studies.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/the-future-of-eastern-syria-and-the-israeli-intere

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Despite long-term truce overtures, Hamas urges ‎mass border protest - Ariel Kahana, Mati Tuchfeld, Nikki Guttman and Eli Leon

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by Ariel Kahana, Mati Tuchfeld, Nikki Guttman and Eli Leon

"If the calm on the border ‎is violated, Israel will mount a forceful response," official warns

Hamas leaders on Thursday urged Palestinians in the ‎Gaza Strip to arrive at the border with Israel on ‎Friday and protest en masse, as they have been doing ‎since the onset of the group's border riot campaign ‎four months ago. ‎

The call came despite the fact Gaza's rulers are ‎engaged in indirect cease-fire negotiations with Israel, ‎meant to prevent the hostilities of recent weeks ‎from escalating further. ‎

Israeli officials said Hamas' actions on the ground ‎would determine whether negotiations ‎could continue, saying, "If the calm on the border ‎is violated, Israel will mount a forceful, ‎unrestricted response.

Arab media reported Thursday that the cease-fire ‎‎agreement Egypt is trying to ‎negotiate between ‎‎Israel and Hamas includes a one-‎year truce as well ‎‎as several measures meant to ‎alleviate the dire ‎‎economic situation in Gaza, such as establishing a ‎‎"naval ‎‎corridor" between Cyprus and Gaza through ‎which ‎‎goods could be delivered to the enclave, as well as ‎‎the ‎construction of a port in the ‎Sinai Peninsula, ‎which ‎would operate under Israeli ‎security ‎supervision.‎

An Egyptian source said that if the truce proves ‎viable, negotiations will be held to extend it to ‎four years. ‎

He further said a broader agreement would include a ‎prisoner exchange deal, under which Hamas will ‎return the bodies of two IDF soldiers as well as two ‎living Israeli civilians, and Israel will release ‎hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners. ‎

Hamas denied that a prisoner exchange deal was in ‎the works, saying it opposes linking a truce deal ‎to a potential prisoner exchange. ‎

Israeli officials denied that the current talks ‎extended beyond a bilateral cease-fire, and said any ‎Arab reports suggesting Israel has agreed to a naval ‎corridor are false.‎

An official privy to the current talks told Israel ‎‎Hayom, "The truce would have to hold for a ‎considerable period of time for Israel to discuss ‎any humanitarian projects in which it may be involved. ‎This would also depend on prisoner exchange ‎negotiations."‎

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman and Habayit ‎Hayehudi head Naftali Bennett Gil Eliyahu / JINI

‎Also on Thursday, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman ‎and Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett again ‎locked horns over the defense establishment's ‎policies in Gaza. ‎

Bennett, who over the past week has accused ‎Lieberman of being "too lenient" on terrorism, said ‎that the defense minister's policy of trying to ‎communicate directly with the Palestinians in Gaza ‎in an effort to undermine Hamas' regime was ‎‎"hollow and senseless."‎

‎"The idea that Israel can persuade the public in ‎Gaza to topple Hamas' government is detached from ‎reality," Bennett said.‎ "Has Lieberman ask himself how many years it would ‎take to topple Hamas by the power of persuasion? Who ‎does he think will pay the price for the increase in ‎terrorism in the meantime? ‎

"Lieberman's message has been well received: ‎Terrorism pays. Hamas fires rockets at us and Israel ‎caves. The Israel-Hamas deal Lieberman is pushing is ‎a serious and irresponsible mistake that will allow ‎Hamas to accelerate rocket production," ‎Bennett blasted. ‎

A statement by Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu party ‎retorted, "As Bennett has often been absent from ‎cabinet meetings about Gaza, he is unfamiliar with the ‎details involved."‎

The party went on to characterize the bickering ‎between the two as "an argument between Lieberman's ‎responsible right-wing positions and the messianic ‎and populist Right represented by Bennett, which ‎supports a binational state and the occupation of ‎Gaza."

Another minister also criticized the deal taking ‎shape saying that "Israel has effectively ‎capitulated to them [Hamas]. Israel is giving them ‎supplies, power, money and assurances for a naval ‎corridor, but we are getting nothing in return. Our ‎captives have not been released and all we are ‎getting is a truce that Hamas can decide to violate ‎at will." ‎

Senior Jerusalem officials insisted Thursday that no ‎long-term agreement would be reached with Hamas ‎unless the Israeli captives were returned.

Ariel Kahana, Mati Tuchfeld, Nikki Guttman and Eli Leon

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/08/17/despite-moves-toward-long-term-truce-hamas-calls-for-%e2%80%8emass-border-protest/

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Why come to America if they don't want to be Americans? - Jeffrey A. Friedburg

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by Jeffrey A. Friedburg

If you are a real, legal immigrant, and not an invader – you came here for truth, justice, and the American way.

"They" are preciously called "immigrants," "refugees," "migrants," "undocumented Americans," and other pathetic-sounding names tailored to wrench our hearts – we purportedly cruel, unsympathetic, inhuman Americans. 

Luxuriating here, behind our walls of wealth, abundance, and security, we deny them our (stolen) largesse and close up our fat-wracked arms to these noble, sacred, starving, uneducated, illiterate, diseased, violent, and socialist masses from "third-world," countries.

Who are these Mexicans, Africans, South Americans, Asians, and others whose feet Nancy Pelosi has washed and the pope kissed?  What is it these luminaries see that we do not?  We – reputedly the most selfish, evil, detestable creatures on Earth? 

Breitbart:

About 58 percent, or nearly 6-in-10 refugees have "below basic" English skills after living in the U.S. for five years. These unassimilated refugees are sometimes described as "functionally illiterate[.]" ...

Since 2008, as Breitbart News reported, the U.S. [with the "help" of "religious" and civilian "immigrant" organizations raking in billions of dollars] has permanently resettled more than 1.7 million foreign nationals and refugees through a variety of humanitarian programs like the Special Immigrant Juveniles, and the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act.

The majority, about 56 percent, of refugee households between 2011 and 2015 were on food stamps, a welfare service that is subsidized by the American taxpayer. 

Nearly 30 percent of refugees received cash welfare of some sort between 2011 and 2015, while 34 percent of refugees 18-years-old or older said they had no health insurance.  

Of the refugees who said they did have health insurance, about 50 percent said they were either on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance, both of which are taxpayer-funded.

Based upon commonsense analysis of the presented facts, it seems some of these "folks" do not come here to actually be Americans.  It seems they do not want to be "assimilated" or to learn English.  Or work.  Or be responsible for their own finances, or for any employable future. 

If you come to another country, but you have no dream to become one with it – and you express hatred and anger for your host while praising and promoting your own country and vengefully flying its flag, and you say out loud that you want to vanquish and control the host – then you are a foreign invader.  A conquering army. 

When the Italians, Irish, Jews, and others came to America around the beginning of the 20th century – escaping the Old World, imbued with genuine desire to become 100% American – they had to stop at Ellis Island, the federal immigration station, isolated on 27.5 acres in the Upper New York Bay.

These people, including my own Jewish ancestors, came to America at the turn of the 20th century to escape actual ethnic cleansing of the Pogroms, or mass murders – poverty and suppression – and to fulfill a dream of becoming Americans.  They didn't "protest," march, or fly the flags of their home countries.  They learned English, entered or created American jobs, and became financially and societally successful.

There was no American welfare state.  There were no "freebie" benefits as there are now, a hundred years later.  

These immigrants of the early 20th century came to America to be free, to stand individually, to provide for their families, to create, and to become 100% Americans. 

There is precedent here.  There is ancestral experience and assimilation in America here. There are those who know what it means to be an immigrant and escape to a better world in America. 

The American Dream has never been one of living on welfare or benefits while maintaining and promoting your own "culture," language, religion, and laws.  It's not about being a Mexican or an African or any other nationality.

America is about being American.

It's the same in any country.  You don't go to Mexico or Saudi Arabia or Zimbabwe, and fly the American flag and declare you're there to take over.  You would probably be arrested or killed in those countries.  

In America, you are protected by law.  You are an American.  

If you are a real, legal immigrant, and not an invader – you came here for truth, justice, and the American way.

If you came here but don't want to be an American, or you want to eradicate America and be in control through ethnicity, religion, or foreign law – go home.  Or go somewhere else.

Jeffrey A. Friedberg was a state-licensed east-coast private eye for 35 years.  He is an author, blogger, and internet columnist.  His website is www.ConservativeRightWingNews.com.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/why_come_to_america_if_they_dont_want_to_be_americans.html

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Gender Confusion: A Tool of the Left - Peter Skurkiss

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by Peter Skurkiss

Gender confusion is used as a tool by the left to detach America from common sense. Do that, and then control is easy.

The Democratic Party has gone off the deep end in many more ways than just pushing socialism.  One sign is the fanatical embrace of identity politics, which has become the hallmark of the Party of Obama (POO).  Look at Vermont.  There, the Democrats' primary race for governor was won by Christine Hallquist.

What is unusual is that Hallquist calls himself a "transgender woman."  To put it more accurately and without any politically correct gloss, Hallquist is a male pretending to be a woman.  His pretending isn't all that convincing, as evidenced by this YouTube clip from Time magazine.

It's worth a minute's time to see Hallquist to connect a face and a voice to the name and see what the Democrats are pushing.

Yes, Hallquist is a man in spite of any superficial changes he has made to his appearance.  The chromosomes of the cells in his body haven't changed, and he can't erase the fact that he fathered three children when he was known as David Hallquist.  Now, it is one thing for an individual to assert himself to be a woman and to act the part.  There are always oddities.  However, it is something entirely different for a major political party to put forward such a confused person for a high-level position as governor of a state. 

Does the primary win by Hallquist embarrass the Democrats?  Not at all.  Rather, it is celebrated within the party, a type of collective virtue-signaling.

All this could come across as comic relief, but it's deadly serious stuff.  The American mind is being stupefied.  For example, right now all across the country, many young college students are reporting to their campuses to be trained as resident assistants or as sometimes called resident assistants (R.A.).

The duties of a resident assistant can be far-reaching.  Part of an R.A.'s training includes being familiar with (and no doubt sensitive to) the various "gender" classifications the students may use.  Even relatively small, respectable colleges use over 30 gender classifications.  Over 30!

This is neither a mistake nor an anomaly.  Russell Goldman of ABC News did a study of the various gender classifications used by Facebook (link no longer available).  He identified 58 gender options at Facebook: 

• Agender
• Androgyne
• Androgynous
• Bigender
• Cis
• Cisgender
• Cis Female
• Cis Male
• Cis Man
• Cis Woman
• Cisgender Female
• Cisgender Male
• Cisgender Man
• Cisgender Woman
• Female to Male
• FTM
• Gender Fluid
• Gender Nonconforming
• Gender Questioning
• Gender Variant
• Genderqueer
• Intersex
• Male to Female
• MTF
• Neither
• Neutrois
• Non-binary
• Other
• Pangender
• Trans
• Trans*
• Trans Female
• Trans* Female
• Trans Male
• Trans* Male
• Trans Man
• Trans* Man
• Trans Person
• Trans* Person
• Trans Woman
• Trans* Woman
• Transfeminine
• Transgender
• Transgender Female
• Transgender Male
• Transgender Man
• Transgender Person
• Transgender Woman
• Transmasculine
• Transsexual
• Transsexual Female
• Transsexual Male
• Transsexual Man
• Transsexual Person
• Transsexual Woman
• Two-Spirit

Good luck in figuring what's what here.  But this list can't be wrong.  It's being used by Facebook, one of the newly minted Masters of the Cosmos.

Gender confusion is used as a tool by the left to detach America from common sense.  Do that, and then control is easy.  The Democratic Party's nomination of Hallquist is but a symptom, the tip of the iceberg.  Given what is going on outside the general public's view, Hallquist's nomination is not at all surprising.  In fact, it's a logical extension of years of left-wing indoctrination of the young.

Here, the left and its political arm, the Democratic Party, are like a nest of termites.  In the dark, the termites eat away at the structure of a house.  The average homeowner can be totally unaware of the rot growing every hour of every day under his feet – that is, until the once sturdy support beams have innards of sawdust, and the house has to be condemned.  

The cancer of the left has rotted out public education, the media, entertainment, government, religious organizations, the relationship between men and women, and even sports.  Everything the left touches, it degrades.  The façades are there, but the substance is lacking.  Examine the Democratic Party at the national level, and you won't find a single redeeming feature to it – "zip, zero, nada," as Rush would say.  From matters of economics to morals to patriotism, and even to common sense, the Democrats are woefully wrong on all.

I sit here and contemplate the things the Democratic Party supports – open borders, socialism, anti-prosperity policies, government lawlessness, raw racial divisiveness, screwball candidates – and can't imagine a blue wave in November.  But then I hear a whispering in my other ear that reminds me of two things.  One is the ongoing rot of our institutions by the left.  So many come out of school year after year with a head fully of mush...and they vote.  The second is the fact that twice, America elected Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency, and the most corrupt and loathsome person in modern politics, Hillary Rodham Clinton, came within a hair's breadth of winning it in 2016. Frankly, all that still amazes me.  It speaks not of the America I know.

So it is a delicate balance which way things will tip come November.  Unless the left and its extension, the Democratic Party, are aggressively confronted on every issue, large and small, from the local level to the national – a Terminix treatment, if you will – America will share the fate of a termite-infested house.  These insects have already made great headway in undermining our Republic.  They must be stopped before it's too late.

Peter Skurkiss

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/gender_confusion_a_tool_of_the_left.html

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The Death of France - Stephen Brown

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by Stephen Brown

How French leaders trigger lawlessness by their own cowardice and passivity.

If radical Islamic clerics thought they were immune to terror threats themselves, then they have now been disabused of that notion.  Last month in France, instead of the predictable pattern of arrests of Islamic jihadists plotting deadly terrorist attacks; this time, the jihadists were apparently the targets themselves.  This turn of events signals France's accelerated spiral into lawless violence.

The French newspaper Le Figaro reported that police in June took ten people into custody for allegedly targeting for attack “radical imams, veiled women and convicted jihadists released from prison.” (There are currently 512 people convicted on terrorism charges in French prisons.) The arrests were made in the Paris region, Corsica, and in Charante-Maritime.

“This group was aiming for ‘targets presumed in connection with radical Islam,’ ” a source told Le Figaro.

Raids on several homes turned up “rifles, pistols, and homemade grenades” and police reported this “groupuscule” (small group) “trained regularly at sport shooting clubs and had prepared arms caches and food supplies in case of a major crisis.” (Which makes one wonder whether they were “ultra-right” terrorists or simply survivalists.)

The surprising feature about this group is its composition. It is not one that is usually associated with the “ultra-right” -- namely young, skinhead, neo-Nazi types. The ten, for the most part, are family fathers and range in age from 32 to 69 without prior arrest records, and one member is female. And the presumed leader of the group is also a retired national policeman.

“The ten apparently shared the same desire: to carry out attacks to avenge the Islamic attacks committed in France these past years,” stated Le Figaro.

Roughly 245 people have been killed in France since January 2015, in a wave of jihadist attacks “without precedent.” The deadliest was the 2015 Paris attack, in which 130 people died, 89 in the Bataclan nightclub alone.

Some French citizens clearly believe their government has failed them in efforts to protect them against the jihadist menace. As noted above, Islamic terrorism in France has claimed 245 lives the last three and a half years alone, and bodies will certainly continue to pile up, jihadist attack after jihadist attack.

“Nous les combattrons!, nous les combattrons!, nous les combattrons! (We will fight them!),” declared France’s former socialist president, Francoise Hollande, in 2014. 

For many Frenchmen, this statement is a dead letter. Worse, they are shattered at the realization the French government has broken its social contract to protect its people. Back in 2014, former socialist Prime Minister Emmanual Valls told students at a high school that their generation would have to get used to living with terrorist attacks “for a long period of time.” In other words, France could no longer guarantee their security, revealing its surrender to the whim of murder and mayhem.

Valls also said the same thing to a crowd in Nice in July 2016, after the deadly truck attack along the Promenade des Anglais that killed 89. But this time, he was roundly booed and called a “murderer” and told to resign, by Frenchmen unwilling “to live with terrorism.”

The growing feeling of insecurity in France was not eased by current French President Emmanuel Macron’s words to a meeting of parliamentarians in Versailles recently when he said: “The Republic does not have any reason to be in difficulty with Islam, not more than with any other religion.”

This subterfuge of the political elites to normalize terror attacks - pitching terror attacks as unlucky occurrences that can’t be eliminated, like bad traffic accidents or fires - is being roundly rejected by French citizens. They rightly see this as a policy of surrender, as well as an admission of complete failure. In their eyes, politicians who engage this chicanery should step aside; hence the calls for Valls to resign.

Another source of outrage is the weak measures successive French administrations adopt to combat jihad - measures that are demonstrably ineffective.  The most recent, and most conspicuous, is the unsightly security wall and concrete blocks placed around the Eiffel Tower, as well as the thousands of combat soldiers patrolling the streets. Both are symbolic of government failure.

“One knows only how to submit rather than treat the causes,” said one critic of the Eiffel Tower’s shameful, new look.

Some in France however, refuse to submit and want to treat terror's root causes by first having the legal authorities name the enemy, confront underlying religious motivations, and then have security forces preemptively attack - in full force. French writer Pascal Bruckner perhaps expressed this sentiment best when he told Le Figaro: “We are at war; it will be necessary to be pitiless.”

Instead, the French are told their jihadist attackers are simply “mentally ill” and that all ideological and political debates about Islam and the murderers’ self-proclaimed religious motives are “Islamophobic” and akin to racism.

French security forces are certainly capable of neutralizing the jihadist menace if allowed. But French politicians, whose concern is only the next election and not the future, are worried what effect such action could have on Muslim voters, a significant voting bloc among France’s six million Muslims.  

“Here is the new France, the one which is emerging, the one which is beginning, the one of the future. You the inhabitants, Islamic or not, of the housing projects, you are the future of France…,” said former socialist French President Francois Hollande to residents of an immigrant ghetto in 2012, showing both his bias and where the socialists intend to get their future votes.

However, in pointing out his government’s apparent refusal to go over to the offensive, French professor Shmuel Trigano of Paris Nanterre University sums up the devastating consequence of this failure for the French people:“They are sacrificing the victims in order not to have to give battle to the executioners,” he stated in Le Figaro.

Private vigilante groups and citizens taking the law into their own hands have no place, naturally, in a democracy. But many French do want their government’s passivity to end. They know from experience that Maginot Lines don't work. 

Instead of waiting to be slaughtered like sacrificial sheep - “pitiless” - aggressive state action against the jihadists is what French people demand and deserve.  Besides, such a corrective course is the best antidote to avert the impending clash of communities or even civil war, in France.

Stephen Brown  is a contributing editor at Frontpagemag.com and he has a graduate degree in Russian and Eastern European history. Email him at alsolzh@rogers.com.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271029/death-france-stephen-brown

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Israel's Long Arm Reaches Peddler of Death - Ari Lieberman

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by Ari Lieberman

A clear and present danger is eliminated.

The spasm of Hamas-provoked violence that gripped the Gaza Strip and parts of southern Israel last week has temporarily halted for the time being. According to credible reports, Israel informed Cairo that it would begin targeting Hamas leaders and commanders if Hamas failed to rein in its assorted thugs and gangsters. Hamas heeded the call, and for good reason.

Over the years, Israel’s various security branches have developed a penchant for liquidating dangerous enemies who seek to inflict harm on the Jewish State. Hamas is keenly aware of this fact having recently lost two of its operatives – Mohammad Zawari and Fadi Muhammad al-Batsh– under mysterious, cloak and dagger-like circumstances. Both were senior members of the terrorist group, and both were responsible for developing and advancing Hamas’s militarized drone program. Zawari was killed in December 2016 while in Tunisia while al-Batsh was liquidated in Malaysia just four months ago. In both cases, the culprits made a clean getaway.

While Israel’s security establishment is keeping watch over Hamas and the southern border, it hasn’t for a moment let up on its vigilance against Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, entities which pose the greatest menace to Israel’s north. Hezbollah receives $800-$1b annually in aid from Iran and has been able to amass a rocket arsenal of some 125,000 rockets and missiles. This formidable stockpile dwarfs the arsenals of nearly all NATO-member states. Hezbollah has also been constructing underground factories in Lebanon capable of producing long-range missiles.

Israel has been seeking to thwart efforts by Iran and Hezbollah to open a new front against Israel and has been waging a relentless military and political campaign to accomplish this objective. Of particular concern for Israel is the establishment of Iranian controlled ballistic missile facilities in Syria. One such facility in Masyaf, which is located in Syria’s northwestern Hama province, has been the target of repeated Israeli strikes. An Israeli intelligence site recently released satellite images of the Masyaf facility and the devastation caused by an apparent Israeli missile strike in July. The side-by-side, before and after images are glaring.

In addition to an overt military campaign, Israel has also been executing covert operations aimed at taking out those responsible for implementing Iran’s malign designs in Syria. Israel’s intelligence network in Syria is excellent and not much goes on in that dysfunctional failed state without the Israelis knowing about it.

The man largely responsible for the Masyaf facility and its top-secret missile development project was a Syrian named Dr. Aziz Asbar. Asbar, who had close ties to Iran and Quds Force commander Gen. Qassim Suleimani, had been on Israel’s radar for some time. Last Saturday, Asbar met with an ignominious fate when he (along with his chauffeur) was blown to smithereens when his car exploded in Masyaf. 

According to one report, someone drove alongside his vehicle and latched a bomb to it. A number of Iranian nuclear scientists responsible for advancing Iran’s atomic bomb project were eliminated in a similar fashion. Another report posited that a bomb was placed in the seat’s headrest and exploded. In 2008, Hezbollah’s chief of special operations, Imad Mughniyah, was killed in Damascus under reportedly similar circumstances.

Asbar was no ordinary scientist. He led a top-secret weapons-development unit called Sector 4. At the time of his death, he was working to improve the lethality of the potent M-600 surface-to-surface missile. The M-600 is capable of leveling a city block. He was also deeply involved in efforts to construct a subterranean missile facility in Masyef to shield it from precision Israeli strikes. Asbar’s untimely demise has thrown a wrench into Iranian plans and has given Israel additional breathing space.

Asbar and his Hamas cousins, Zawari and al-Batsh can be added to the long list of names, stretching back several decades, who have succumbed to Israel’s vaunted security forces. In the 1960s, ex-Nazi scientists recruited by Egypt to build guidance systems for ballistic missiles found themselves on the receiving end of a very effective Mossad counter-proliferation campaign. The lead Nazi scientist was kidnapped and terminated while the others were “persuaded” to quit the project entirely and return to Germany.

In 1990, a disgruntled 62-year-old artillery genius named Gerald Bull placed himself in the service of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Bull, who was building a super cannon for Hussein, ignored repeated warnings to cease his activities. On March 22, 1990, he was shot and liquidated just outside his Brussels apartment. A number of Iranian nuclear scientists and ballistic missile experts have met similar fates.

There are so-called human rights activists and legal experts who have termed Israel’s use of extrajudicial liquidations “illegal” and “immoral.” But what these myopic armchair observers fail to recognize is that Israel faces genocidal enemies who don’t play by the rules but cynically exploit Western moral codes and laws of war when it suits them. Instead of criticism, Israel is owed a debt of gratitude for making the world a safer place by eliminating those who peddle in nothing but death and destruction.

Ari Lieberman is an attorney and former prosecutor who has authored numerous articles and publications on matters concerning the Middle East and is considered an authority on geo-political and military developments affecting the region.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271058/israels-long-arm-reaches-peddler-death-ari-lieberman

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