Has Ilhan Omar finally met her match? - Andrea Widburg

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by Andrea Widburg

Omar has a Republican challenger in for her House seat who has a résumé that seriously threatens the progressive from Somalia.

Since her election to the House of Representatives, Ilhan Omar has had a knack for generating national headlines. Initially, the headlines were positive. Here was a young Muslim woman who had come to this country at age 10, after having escaped the Somali civil war with her family and then spending four years in a Kenyan refugee camp. Omar is also extremely photogenic and had impeccable progressive credentials. She was a perfect fit for Minnesota's 5th District, which encompasses Minneapolis and surrounding areas.

The last time the 5th District sent a Republican to the House of Representatives was in 1960. The same district has also begun to boast a large Muslim population in recent years. Indeed, it has the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in America. As of 2016, there were estimated to be between 40,000 and 52,000 Somalis, both immigrants and first-generation children, in Minneapolis, with some putting the number as high as 80,000.

Omar's problem has been that, since her ascension to the House and her high profile in "the Squad" of four newly elected Progressive young women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she's been dogged by controversy. She's proven herself to be extremely hostile to Jews and Israel, so much so that the House tried to censure her specifically for that anti-Semitism, only to collapse before the rising anti-Semitism in the entire body. Instead, it issued a vague pronouncement saying, essentially, that it hates hate.

Omar also aroused the wrath of many Americans when video footage emerged showing her at a CAIR event describing 9/11 as a day on which "some people did something." That statement came wrapped in a package of complaining that Muslims in America have been "second-class" citizens since 9/11, never mind that not a single law or other government initiative has passed downgrading Islam in America. It was a false, whining, disrespectful thing to say.

Just recently, Omar joined with other Democrats in expressing outrage that Trump would dare kill an Iranian terrorist. She also showed what's becoming common with her, which is a signal lack of intelligence, when she confused copper nickel mining with oil mining.

Given Minneapolis's true blue politics, none of the above should affect her standing with voters there. On the things that matter to them, she has a perfect record political slate: she supports student loan debt forgiveness; Medicare for All (i.e., socialized medicine); open borders; ending ICE; anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism; LGBT rights; high minimum wages; and, of course, she despises Trump. Indeed, through tweets, she's occasionally entered into a war of wits with Trump, despite the handicap that she is manifestly unarmed.

The big problem for Omar now is that she's being investigated by the FBI and other federal agencies for immigration fraud, tax fraud, and student loan fraud. It's entirely possible that the federal government, because she's in a protected class under the progressive rubric, will back down from the investigation, just as the British police refused to look into all the child-trafficking and sex abuse in Rotherham and Manchester. It wasn't politically worth it for them to run afoul of Britain's Muslim community, and the feds may feel the same about America's Muslim community vis-à-vis Omar's potentially criminal actions.

Still, it's a stain on Omar's record. Moreover, scuttlebutt has it that many in Minneapolis's Muslim community are not happy with Omar's progressive politics or her increasingly open America hatred.

Enter Dalia al-Aqidi. Dalia is also a Muslim refugee, having left war-torn Iraq for American when she was a child. Unlike Omar, Dalia loves her new country. She became a journalist and covered the Middle East, especially Iraq. She understands what happens when a political party is dedicated to tearing the country apart.

Dalia is running as a Republican to take Omar's seat. She exploded into national awareness Friday when she posted an extraordinary campaign video, one in which she celebrates America's virtues and promises, if elected, to work for, not against, America and its values:



Being a Republican in Minneapolis is a handicap, but Dalia is attractive and a fighter, and she should appeal to the more conservative element among the city's Somali voters, as well as disaffected Democrats who, while liberal in their values, have tired of the newly woke Democrat party's hard leftism.

Andrea Widburg

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/has_ilhan_omar_finally_met_her_match.html

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Trump Had Right to Withhold Ukraine Funds: GAO is Wrong - Alan M. Dershowitz

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by Alan M. Dershowitz

Even if the GAO were correct in its legal conclusion — which it is not — the alleged violation would be neither a crime nor an impeachable offense.

• The Constitution allocates to the president sole authority over foreign policy (short of declaring war or signing a treaty). It does not permit Congress to substitute its foreign policy preferences for those of the president.
• To the extent that the statute at issue constrains the power of the president to conduct foreign policy, it is unconstitutional.
• Even if the GAO were correct in its legal conclusion — which it is not — the alleged violation would be neither a crime nor an impeachable offense. It would be a civil violation subject to a civil remedy, as were the numerous violations alleged by the GAO with regard to other presidents.
• If Congress and its GAO truly believe that President Trump violated the law, let them go to court and seek the civil remedy provided by the law.

The Constitution allocates to the president sole authority over foreign policy... It does not permit Congress to substitute its foreign policy preferences for those of the president. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Wikipedia Commons)

U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has gotten the constitutional law exactly backwards. It said that the "faithful execution of the law" — the Impoundment Control Act—"does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those congress has enacted into law ." Yes, it does — when it comes to foreign policy. The Constitution allocates to the president sole authority over foreign policy (short of declaring war or signing a treaty). It does not permit Congress to substitute its foreign policy preferences for those of the president.

To the extent that the statute at issue constrains the power of the president to conduct foreign policy, it is unconstitutional.

Consider the following hypothetical situation: Congress allocates funds to Cuba (or Iran or Venezuela). The president says that is inconsistent with his foreign policy and refuses to release the funds. Surely the president would be within his constitutional authority. Or consider the actual situation that former President Barack Obama created when he unilaterally made the Iran deal and sent that enemy of America billions of dollars without congressional approval. I do not recall the GAO complaining about that presidential decision, despite the reality that the Iran deal was, in effect, a treaty that should require senate approval that was never given.

Whatever one may think about the substantive merits of what President Donald Trump did or did not do with regard to the Ukrainian money— which was eventually sent without strings —he certainly had the authority to delay sending the funds. The GAO was simply wrong in alleging that he violated the law, which includes the Constitution, by doing so.

To be sure, the statute requires notification to Congress, but if such notification significantly delays the president from implementing his foreign policy at a time of his choice, that too would raise serious constitutional issues.

Why then would a nonpartisan agency get it so wrong as a matter of constitutional law. There are two obvious answers: first, in the age of Trump there is no such thing as nonpartisan. The political world is largely divided into people who hate and people who love President Trump. This is as true of long term civil servants as it is of partisan politicians. We have seen this with regard to the FBI, the CIA, the Fed and other government agencies that are supposed to be nonpartisan. There are of course exceptions such as the inspector general of the Department of Justice who seems genuinely non-partisan. But most civil servants share the nationwide trend of picking sides. The GAO does not seem immune to this divisiveness.

Second, even if the GAO were non-partisan in the sense of preferring one political party over the other, it is partial to Congress over the president. The GAO is a congressional body. It is part of the legislative, not executive, branch. As such, it favors congressional prerogatives over executive power. It is not surprising therefore that it would elevate the authority of Congress to enact legislation over that of the president to conduct foreign policy.

In any event, even if the GAO were correct in its legal conclusion — which it is not— the alleged violation would be neither a crime nor an impeachable offense. It would be a civil violation subject to a civil remedy, as were the numerous violations alleged by the GAO with regard to other presidents. Those alleged violations were barely noted by the media. But in the hyper-partisan impeachment atmosphere, this report received breathless "breaking news" coverage and a demand for inclusion among the articles of impeachment.

If Congress and its GAO truly believe that President Trump violated the law, let them go to court and seek the civil remedy provided by the law. But let us not continue to water down the constitutional criteria for impeachment by including highly questionable, and on my view wrongheaded, views about violations of an unconstitutional civil law.

• Follow Alan M. Dershowitz on Twitter and Facebook

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of the book, Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo, Skyhorse Publishing, November 2019. He is a Distinguished Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15462/trump-had-right-to-withhold-ukraine-funds-gao-is

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The Supreme Court has agreed to address a challenge to the Electoral College - Andrea Widburg

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by Andrea Widburg

Since the day Trump won the Electoral College vote, Democrats have been trying to destroy that constitutional system. Will the Supreme Court help or block them?

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Donald Trump, however, won the Electoral College by focusing on all states, not just the most populous ones. Since then, Democrats have been bent on destroying the Electoral College by any means short of a constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court has now agreed to take up one of Democrats' attacks on the Electoral College.

The Founders created the Electoral College via Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 in the Constitution. Its purpose reflects the fact that America is not a direct democracy but is, instead, a representative democracy. The Electoral College is one of the many layers the Founders put between the government and the possible madness of the mob.

Before the 17th Amendment, senators were originally meant to be elected by state legislatures, putting them at a remove from voters. The president nominates judges, and the Senate votes on them. Only representatives come to D.C. via direct democracy — and the Senate tempers their initiatives (including impeachment), again protecting against voters' passions of the moment.

In addition to blocking mob rule, the Electoral College has another, extremely important, perhaps even more important, purpose: it ensures that presidents cannot campaign only in large population centers, pandering to the preferences of those centers, while ignoring the rest of the United States.

Without the Electoral College, presidential candidates would only campaign in, and shape their policies for, New York (Leftist), California (Leftist), Illinois (Leftist), Texas (generally conservative, but with its population centers rapidly going Left), Florida (a swing state, hewing Left because of northeastern snowbirds), Ohio (another swing state), Washington state (Leftist), Colorado (Leftist), and Massachusetts (Leftist). They would ignore the rest of America.

The Electoral College stands as a bright line between an Executive who must campaign in all of the states, taking note of the needs and values of all Americans, and an Executive who can govern to the left of Bernie Sanders after getting votes from a handful of states. No wonder Democrats hate the Electoral College.

One of the challenges to the Electoral College is the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact." The 15 states (plus D.C.) that have already agreed to that compact want to ignore their citizens' votes and, instead, assign their electoral votes to the candidate with the most national popular votes. 

In the short term, immediately after President Trump won the Electoral College, Democrats began to bully Democrat and NeverTrump electors in states Trump won, demanding that they vote for Hillary to protect America from the insanity of Trump voters. Those who, out of "principle" or fear, switched their votes came to be called "faithless electors." Prof. William Jacobson described the faithless elector movement as "nothing short of an attempt to steal the election."

Thirty-two states have laws mandating that electors cast their votes consistent with the will of the state's voters. Washington and Colorado are among that number and, in cases arising out of faithless electors, it is their laws that the Supreme Court is going to address. William Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell, has weighed in on the issue:

I don't know enough about the legal issues to opine — I have some reading up to do.
But the politics are clear. This may be the single most important case this year. If the Supreme Court rules that electors can be faithless, then there is going to be mayhem in 2020 when Trump wins again. Those who sought to intimidate and bully electors in 2016 were largely viewed as being out of bounds.
But if given a legal green light, there's no telling how much damage could be done to the stability of the nation if the electoral counts is close and bullying a small number of electors to go faithless swings the Electoral College to Democrats.

Perhaps because I'm less informed than Prof. Jacobson, I am willing to opine on the matter: one of the Founders wanted to ensure that voters in each state had a say in electing the president. Any attempt to warp the Electoral College into a vehicle for enacting the national popular vote is antithetical to that purpose.

It's true that the Founders also wanted to protect against mob passions, but one has to ask: in 2016, was the mob the people who politely voted for a candidate who was consistent with American norms before 2008, or was the mob the people who took to the street after the election, threatening to destroy American institutions if their demands were not met? Moreover, would the Founders side with the existential screamers if that meant erasing the voters of most American states?

Ultimately, those Leftists who want to destroy the Electoral College still can, but they must do so via the constitutional amendment process.

Andrea Widburg

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/the_supreme_court_has_agreed_to_address_a_challenge_to_the_electoral_college.html

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Is the Sahel Region Becoming a New "Islamic State"? - Alain Destexhe

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by Alain Destexhe

The US should not pull out of the Sahel

• Even if violent attacks are now mostly concentrated around the border of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, the unstable area subject to terrorism covers a huge area -- equivalent to half of Europe or the United States -- and is spread over five countries.... Because it involves such a huge territory, and because Europeans simply do not have the air support and intelligence capabilities of the United States, American support in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel is critical.
• US President Donald J. Trump would understandably like the Europeans to do more to fight the Islamic State in the Middle East and Africa. He is right. Europe is more directly concerned by the destabilization of these regions than the United States. The continent is still dependent on the Persian Gulf for its energy supply, and a destabilization of the Sahel countries would lead to vast new migratory pressures on Europe. Most European Union countries, however, starting with Germany, refuse to draw conclusions about the consequences of the situation and increase their military spending and involvement in operations abroad.
• In the short term, an American withdrawal would have disastrous consequences. US air support is absolutely crucial in the fight against terrorism.... The ideal would be for these five African countries to be able to fend for themselves in the fight against terrorism with Western material and logistical support, but without deploying troops from outside the African continent. I am a fervent advocate of letting Africa solve its problems as much as possible within an African framework, but it must be acknowledged that in several conflicts, this is still not realistic and possible.

On January 13, French President Emmanuel Macron convened a summit of the G5 Sahel, a group of five Sahelian countries (Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Mauritania) that are affected by Islamist terrorism. Pictured: Macron and Sahelian leaders at the G5 Sahel summit. (Photo by Guillaume Horcajuelo/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

On January 13, French President Emmanuel Macron convened a summit of the G5 Sahel, a group of five Sahelian countries (Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Mauritania) that are affected by Islamist terrorism. The location of the summit, the small city of Pau in the south of France, was not chosen at random: it hosts the base of France's 5th Combat Helicopter Regiment. Seven of the thirteen French soldiers who died in a November 25, 2019 helicopter accident in Mali belonged to this unit. Since 2013, France has lost 44 soldiers in the Sahel.

According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies:

"The Sahel has experienced the most rapid increase in militant Islamist group activity of any region in Africa in recent years. Violent events involving extremist groups in the region have doubled every year since 2015. In 2019, there have been more than 700 such violent episodes. Fatalities linked to these events have increased from 225 to 2,000 during the same period. This surge in violence has uprooted more than 900,000 people, including 500,000 in Burkina Faso in 2019 alone."

Large parts of the territories are slipping out of the authorities' control.

At the beginning of this year, Mohamed Ibn Chambers, UN Special Representative for West Africa and the Sahel, told the UN Security Council: "The region has experienced a devastating surge in terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets."

"The UNOWAS chief elaborated on terrorist-attack casualties in Burkina Faso Mali and Niger, which have leapt five-fold since 2016 – with more than 4,000 deaths reported in 2019 alone as compared to some 770 three years earlier."

In Burkina Faso, a country that was still considered stable two years ago, the death toll has risen even more dramatically, from about 80 in 2016 to more than 1,800 in 2019. The focus of terrorist attacks is predating eastwards and is increasingly threatening West African coastal States, such as the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo and Benin.

The causes of the destabilization of the Sahelian countries are many and complex. Local factors -- ethnic, religious or the feeling of abandonment by the state -- seem to play a predominant role. These states, which inherited their borders from colonization, are weak and their populations often have no strong feeling of belonging to a state worth defending. The Tuaregs in Mali, for example, former nomads who have recently settled down, are faced with economic and political marginalization and problems of assimilation into the Malian state. Terrorists groups have often exploited these deep-seated local grievances.

Among the many causes of these conflicts, one might highlight three.

The first, which is rarely mentioned, is the demographic explosion experienced by countries that have no access to the sea and few resources of their own. In Niger, the annual population growth rate is almost 4%. At the time of its independence in 1960, the country had a population of 3.4 million, which is now estimated at 24.2 million -- a seven-fold increase in 60 years. According to the World Bank, real GDP per capita in Niger stands at only about USD $400 per capita.

Unlike most countries in the world, which have undergone a demographic transition, the birth rate in Niger has hardly changed over time: seven births per woman, and half of the population is under 15 years of age. The situation is similar in neighboring countries. This young population, which has few economic prospects and little to lose, is increasingly escaping the traditional authority of local elders and chiefs, and constitutes an abundant workforce for terrorist groups.

A second factor, which would require a comprehensive study in each country, is the evolution of Islam in the region. The tolerant local Islam that was prevalent in West Africa has been subjected to Salafist influence coming from the Gulf Arab states. This is reflected in an explosion in the number of Salafist mosques and the emergence of radical discourse, in some instances advocating violence.

A third factor is the destabilization of the region following the Western intervention in Libya in 2011, which overthrew the Gaddafi regime. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi played an important role in the Sahel, both economically and as a "mediator" in various local conflicts. The most visible consequence was the more than 20 million weapons made available by the civil war and the demise of a centralized state in Libya -- weapons that now available for purchase by rebel or terrorist groups.

Even if violent attacks are now mostly concentrated around the borders of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, the unstable area subject to terrorism covers a huge area -- equivalent to half of Europe or the United States -- and is spread over five countries.

In Niger, the Islamic State is strong enough to launch attacks on army bases. On December 13, 2019, in a spectacular assault involving dozens of vehicles and motorcycles, hundreds of terrorists tried to take over the military base of Chinagoder, and managed to kill 89 soldiers. In December of 2019 alone, Niger lost at least 174 soldiers in three different attacks on military installations.

The armies of the countries that face this formidable threat are weak, often poorly trained and equipped, and at risk of low morale after the losses already suffered fighting terrorism. Since 2013, French army units have been deployed in the region. In that year, with Operation Serval, the French military prevented insurgent groups from taking the capital of Mali, Bamako. Since 2014, with Operation Barkhane, the headquarters of which is located in N'djamena, the capital of Chad, the French military has extended its field of action to the five countries of the Sahel. 4,500 French troops are currently in the region, and President Macron has promised 220 more.

Because it involves such a huge territory, and because Europeans simply do not have the air support and intelligence capabilities of the United States, American support in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel is critical. Last December, US Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper announced that the United States was considering a drastic reduction -- or even a complete withdrawal -- of US forces from West Africa, a position anxiously criticized, with good reason, by European allies.

US President Donald J. Trump would understandably like the Europeans to do more to fight the Islamic State in the Middle East and Africa. He is right. Europe is more directly concerned by the destabilization of these regions than the United States. The continent is still dependent on the Persian Gulf for its energy supply, and a destabilization of the Sahel countries would lead to vast new migratory pressures on Europe.

Most European Union countries, however, starting with Germany, refuse to draw conclusions about the consequences of the situation and increase their military spending and involvement in operations abroad. Germany relies on NATO and the United States and, when it comes to fighting abroad, on France and the United Kingdom, the only two European countries capable of deploying combat-trained forces.

France's military presence in the Sahel faces strong opposition. As a former colonial power of the five countries concerned, it is not, in theory, the best candidate to intervene: it will always come up against the accusation of neo-colonialism, even if in practice it is the only country ready to send in seasoned fighting forces -- at the request, it must be stressed, of the five governments under threat.

Even though there are no perfect solutions in this complex conflict involving several militant Islamist groups, the confrontation does not look likely to disappear in the near future. On the contrary, it is spreading. In the short term, an American withdrawal would have disastrous consequences. US air support is absolutely crucial in the fight against terrorism.

If the United States decides to withdraw anyway, which would be an incalculable mistake, President Trump should announce a two-year deadline, in the form of an ultimatum, for the Europeans to take over the just completed $110 million US base in Niger and make it operational with drones and aircraft under the European flag. Another option would be to involve NATO, but this could only be done at the call of the countries concerned and with the clear support of the African Union as a whole.

In the medium term, the ideal would be for these five African countries to be able to fend for themselves in the fight against terrorism with Western material and logistical support, but without deploying troops from outside the African continent. I am a fervent advocate of letting Africa solve its problems as much as possible within an African framework, but it must be acknowledged that in several conflicts, this is still not realistic and possible.

In the immediate future, other European countries should respond to the call for help made by France and the G5 Sahel countries and become far more involved in this region whose potential implosion would inevitably impact most of Africa and Europe.

Alain Destexhe, a columnist and political analyst, is an honorary Senator in Belgium and former Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15456/sahel-region-islamic-state

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Israeli FM Yisrael Katz applauds UK's act against Hezbollah - Arutz Sheva

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by Arutz Sheva

'This is a great achievement for the State of Israel in the fight against Iran and its proxies in the region, mainly Hezbollah,' Katz says.

FM Yisrael Katz                                                                                                                                          Hillel Meir/TPS

Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) responded to the British Finance Ministry's Friday announcement that it had added the entire Hezbollah organization to its list of terrorist groups subject to asset freezing.

"I applaud the British government for its decision to include all Hezbollah organizations, including the political echelon - under the legislation that allows freezing all of its assets as a terrorist organization," Katz said. 

"This is a great achievement for the State of Israel in the fight against Iran and its proxies in the region, mainly Hezbollah."

Katz added that he had raised the issue in his meeting with the British Foreign Minister, and is thankful for the Minister's decision to act on the matter.

"I am now looking forward to the governments of Germany, Brazil, Australia and other countries with whom I have spoken [taking] similar steps," Katz concluded.


Arutz Sheva

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/274732

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Saudi editor: US elimination of Soleimani was 'act of heroism' - Benjamin Weinthal

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by Benjamin Weinthal

Newspaper says there are “more Soleimani’s” in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen

A MAN displays a picture of Quds Force head Maj.-Gen Qasem Soleimani (right) and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, both killed in an air strike at Baghdad Airport last Friday, during their funeral procession in Ahvaz, Iran, on January 5.

(photo credit: HOSSEIN MERSADI/FARS NEWS AGENCY/WANA VIA REUTERS)

Khalid Al-Malik, the editor-in-chief of the Saudi Arabian Al-Jazirah daily, declared the United States' targeted killing of the Iranian regime terrorist Qasem Soleimani a “blatant act of heroism” in a January 10 column.

According to the column, Al-Malik wrote that the American neutralization of Soleimani, a US and EU-designated international terrorist, was “a point in favor of US President [Donald] Trump.

"But it is not enough to redress the mistakes that the US made in Iraq," the paper continued. "There are more Qasem Soleimanis in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and if they are not taken care of in way that ensures the security and stability of these countries and of the other countries of the region and the world, Iran's behavior will not change. “

He added that, “The killing of Soleimani will not end the threat posed by Iran to the countries of the world, for Iran's terror network is wide and is not based on any one terrorist, nor are its agents confined to a single country.”

He also wrote that the murder of Soleimani is "a clear achievement and a point in favor of President Trump and the US administration, but it is not enough. The region now faces rounds of Iranian terrorism that will be [even] more numerous and varied. 

“|The Iranians [themselves] are making explicit threats to this effect and are placing this at the top of their agenda as part of exacting revenge for the killing of the leader of evil, the criminal Qasem Soleimani. And what about Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran's other proxies in various Gulf states and [other] Arab and Islamic countries?"

The US-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) first translated Al-Malik’s column and posted it on its website on Thursday. Al-Jazirah is published as an Arabic-language broadsheet paper and had a readership of over 123,000 as of 2013.

MEMRI wrote that, “The assassination of IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani by the US met with numerous reactions in the Saudi press that expressed satisfaction at the severe blow dealt to the Iranian leadership, and also at the initiative taken by the US after a long period in which it avoided using military force against Iran, including after the mid-September attack on the Aramco oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. Conspicuous among these reactions was a January 10, 2020 article by Khalid Al-Malik."MEMRI noted that the editor also directed criticism at the US, noting that it is now paying the price for letting Iran take over Iraq and over its decision-making.

Benjamin Weinthal

Source: https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Saudi-editor-US-elimination-of-Soleimani-was-act-of-heroism-614549

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Why Laws Against Hate Speech Are Dangerous - Fjordman

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by Fjordman

The point is not that these things are written in Islamic scripture, but that people still live by them." — Bruce Bawer, February 8, 2018.

• There is a tendency to censor certain viewpoints because they might "offend" others. The problem is, it is not the inoffensive things that need protecting; it is only the offensive things that do.... Freedom of speech exists precisely to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
• "[T]he freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter." — US President George Washington, 1783.
• How come it is all right to publish the original source, prescribing murder, but that it is "hate speech" to point out that quote?
• "Sometimes, when one points out these rules, people will respond: 'Well, the Bible says such-and-such.' The point is not that these things are written in Islamic scripture, but that people still live by them." — Bruce Bawer, February 8, 2018.
• Restrictions against "hate speech" often do not really ban hate speech; instead they may actually be protecting certain forms of hate speech against legitimate inquiry.

"For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences... reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter." — US President George Washington, 1783. (Original Artwork: Engraving by Nathaniel Currier, circa 1780. Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

In November 2019, Germans celebrated the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany 30 years earlier. That same month, Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a speech to the German federal parliament (Bundestag), advocated more restrictions on free speech for all Germans. She warned that free speech has limits:

"Those limits begin where hatred is spread. They begin where the dignity of other people is violated. This house will and must oppose extreme speech. Otherwise, our society will no longer be the free society that it was."

Merkel received great applause.

Critics, however, would claim that curtailing freedom in order to protect freedom sounds a bit Orwellian. One of the first acts of any tyrant or repressive regime is usually to abolish freedom of speech. Merkel should know this: she lived under a repressive regime -- in the communist dictatorship of East Germany, where she studied at Karl Marx University.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech, specifically speech critical of the government, and prohibits the state from limiting free speech. The First Amendment was placed first in the Bill of Rights because the American Founding Fathers realized that freedom of speech is fundamental to a free society. US President George Washington said:

"For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences... reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter."

Without freedom of speech, you cannot truly be free. Freedom of speech exists precisely to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

What exactly is "hate speech," and who gets to define it? Those who love justice usually also hate injustice. But what is justice? Social justice? Economic justice? Ecological justice? Religious fundamentalist justice? Climate justice?

Hate may be a negative emotion, but you cannot ban emotions. Envy and jealousy are also widely considered negative feelings. Yet we do not ban them. Envy of people who are wealthier than you is arguably a component of Socialist and Marxist political parties everywhere.

The concept of a "hate crime" is also flawed. If you rob, assault or murder people, that is equally injurious regardless of the motivation of the assailant or of who the victim is. We should not have different penalties depending upon whether the victim is a gay black man, a straight white man, a Muslim woman or a Christian nun, or we will end up with a kind of a legal caste system.

Although the legal system should not be based on feelings or emotions, we see an increasing tendency toward this subjectivity. There is a tendency to censor certain viewpoints because they might "offend" others. The problem is, it is not the inoffensive things that need protecting; it is only the offensive things that do. When, in the US, the National Socialist Party of America wanted to march though Skokie, Illinois, home to many Holocaust survivors, the Supreme Court decided that the Nazis' right of free speech overrode suppressing the marchers. According to the Bill of Rights Institute:

"In these cases, National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977), and Brandenburg v. Ohio (1968), the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protects individuals' rights to express their views, even if those views are considered extremely offensive by most people...
"American writer Noam Chomsky said 'If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.' Individuals who express unpopular opinions are protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment prevents majorities from silencing views with which they do not agree—even views that the majority of people find offensive to their very core. "

Possibly many things people say will be considered offensive to somebody, somewhere. In 1600, Giordano Bruno was burned alive at the stake as a heretic for saying that the universe has no center, and stars are suns, surrounded by planets and moons. The findings of Charles Darwin were challenged by the "Scopes Monkey Trial" in 1925, when a high-school teacher in Tennessee, John T. Scopes, was charged with violating state law by teaching the theory of human evolution.

Just a few years ago, it was uncontroversial to state that there are only two biological sexes. After all, this is a fact that would seem pretty straightforward. Yet recently, even this simple statement has become explosive. When the tennis champion Martina Navratilova questioned the fairness of having transgender men compete in sports again women, but was eventually driven to "apologize."

In the UK, a physician, David Mackereth, recently lost his government job as a medical assessor after more than three decades for refusing to renounce his view that gender is determined at birth.

People who claim to combat "hate" often seem to be quite full of hate themselves. Some Americans claim that US President Donald J. Trump is a racist, yet themselves express open hatred toward Trump, and those who vote for him. They do not object to hating. They just seem to believe that their hate is the only legitimate one.

In 2013, the American scholar Robert Spencer was banned by British authorities from entering the UK. Spencer the author of many books about Islam and runs the website Jihad Watch.

The Koran sura 9:5 has verse stating:

"When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful."

The exact translation of this verse can be debated, but the Arabic verb qatala generally means to kill, slay or murder somebody. How come it is all right to publish the original source, prescribing murder, but that it is "hate speech" to point out that quote?

Robert Spencer and others have observed, for instance, that verse 9:5 and other intolerant verses in the Koran have been quoted repeatedly by militant Muslims to justify jihad attacks and violence (for instance here, here and here). Although other religious books also contain violence, as the scholar Bruce Bawer points out:

"Sometimes, when one points out these rules, people will respond: 'Well, the Bible says such-and-such.' The point is not that these things are written in Islamic scripture, but that people still live by them."

Muslims in Britain and other Western nations are free to spread teachings that are hateful towards non-Muslims. Yet because non-Muslims such as Robert Spencer pointed out that some teachings are hateful and have inspired actual atrocities, UK authorities banned Spencer for spreading "hate."

One sees, then, that restrictions against "hate speech" often do not really ban hate speech; instead they may actually be protecting certain forms of hate speech against legitimate inquiry.

Laws against "hate speech" and "racism" always lead to political censorship, because the definition of what constitutes "hate" is always influenced by politics and ideology. Laws against hate speech or racism should therefore be removed. No person has the right "not to be offended." Freedom of speech means saying and hearing things with which you may disagree. What remains important is to be able to say and hear them.

Fjordman

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15256/hate-speech-laws

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Warren Asked Obama to Exonerate Ethel Rosenberg - Matthew Vadum

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by Matthew Vadum

Clearing the name of a traitor was a priority for the Democratic presidential candidate.

Radical U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who could be the next Commander-in-Chief, asked then-President Barack Obama in his final days in office to formally exonerate Soviet atomic spy Ethel Rosenberg, according to media reports.

This was a not a request for a mere presidential pardon, which the Department of Justice cautions does “not erase or expunge the record” of the conviction, but a request that history be rewritten.

Warren, now a leading contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, sent a letter dated Jan. 10, 2017, on behalf of one of Rosenberg’s sons.

“I am writing on behalf of my constituent, Robert Meeropol, and his family to request that you provide a thorough review of their request that you issue a proclamation exonerating his mother, Ethel Rosenberg. Ms. Rosenberg was executed by the United States for conspiracy to commit espionage in 1953.”

The request originated with the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a 30-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit that, in founder Meeropol’s words, was created to enable radical left-wing activists “to rally around the children of this era’s targeted activists.” The group boasted on its website that its petition in late 2016 to President Obama “garnered 60,000 supporters, both from within the ranks of RFC donors, and beyond,” and that it “received extensive media attention that had global reach.”

“The fear of the McCarthy era led to Ethel Rosenberg's unjust conviction and execution,” Meeropol said at the time. “We’re not asking for a pardon, because she was not guilty. We’re asking for a proclamation that she was wrongly convicted, and wrongly executed.”

On RFC’s advisory board sit entertainers Edward Asner, Harry Belafonte, Mandy Patinkin, and Susan Sarandon, along with communist stalwart Angela Davis, and convicted cop-killer Leonard Peltier.

The letter is yet more proof that Warren would be a captive of the far Left if allowed to reside in the White House.

And Warren wasn’t the only Massachusetts Democrat to ask President Obama to exonerate Rosenberg. Her fellow senator, Ed Markey, did the same, as did House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal and House Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern.

In December 2016, former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democrat presidential pick Michael Dukakis issued a public statement asking Obama to publicly proclaim Rosenberg’s innocence.

Yet the guilt of Communist spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg remains.

The married couple was electrocuted at Sing Sing on June 19, 1953.

Their spy ring gave the USSR sensitive information about U.S. air capabilities in the Korean War and the secrets of the A-bomb, allowing our totalitarian enemies to develop nuclear weapons years earlier than they otherwise would have. These spies helped to change the balance of power in the world and emboldened the Soviet Union as it became a superpower and went on the march enslaving tens of millions in Eastern Europe.

As Steven T. Usdin wrote in his 2005 book, Engineering Communism:
“Rosenberg’s band of amateur spies turned over detailed information on a wide range of technologies and weapon systems that hastened the Red Army’s march to Berlin, jump-started its postwar development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and later helped Communist troops in North Korea fight the American military to a standoff.”

In sentencing the Rosenbergs, Judge Irving Kaufman was unsparing in his criticism:
“I consider your crime worse than murder. Plain deliberate contemplated murder is dwarfed in magnitude by comparison with the crime you have committed. In committing the act of murder, the criminal kills only his victim. The immediate family is brought to grief and when justice is meted out the chapter is closed. But in your case, I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country.”

In turning down a request to pardon the Rosenbergs, President Dwight D. Eisenhower didn’t mince words:
“I can only say that, by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent people all over the world. The execution of two human beings is a grave matter. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.”

The Rosenbergs’ guilt was proved long ago but radicals won’t allow facts to get in the way of their narrative.

Because the Rosenbergs were unabashed Communists who didn’t hide their admiration of Stalin’s Soviet Union, the Left ran to their defense, using rationales that shifted over time as more and more damning evidence surfaced against the couple. When the Rosenbergs’ guilt could no longer be disputed, their defenders pivoted, saying they had noble intentions, that the information passed on to the Soviets was junk, and that there were irregularities in their prosecution.

These are all lies but because they remain part of the Left’s anti-American mythology, they have remarkable staying power.

The fact that Elizabeth Warren asked an American president to clear the name of a despicable proven traitor tells you all you need to know about how she would behave as president.

Matthew Vadum

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/warren-asked-obama-exonerate-ethel-rosenberg-matthew-vadum/

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Iranian protester speaks to Israeli station i24News, risks his life - Jerusalem Post Staff

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by Jerusalem Post Staff

He provided his opinion on the current political reality in Iran, Soleimani and Iran's nuclear weapons program. "What the Iranian people want with all their being, is that the regime will fall."

Iran protests

(photo credit: REUTERS)

An unnamed Iranian protester spoke to i24news on Thursday, describing the political and security situation in Iran, as well as providing his perception on the current events that have shaken the country. 

The protester was required to cover his face and identity, in fear of potential severe repercussions associated with speaking to Israeli media, including imprisonment, torture and death.  He noted that speaking to Israeli media might result in "being arrested by the Basij [IRGC paramilitary forces]", clarifying that he knows "that the regime intends to identify protesters by closed-circuit [security] cameras."

He added that the regime has been "dispersing the people [protesters] at any price: by shooting tear gas, by beating up people, by creating mayhem and terror." i24 also asked the protester about the level of popular support for former IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in an American airstrike earlier this month. He responded that, "the Iranian people regarded Soleimani as a terrorist and criminal because he plundered the people's wealth, [and] in suppressing [the demonstrations in] November, [where] he had a leading role. "Soleimani spent [Iran's wealth] on his own terrorist activity, and [that] of the forces under his command – that is the Quds Force – in the Middle East," he said. "He massacred 1,500 people [in Iran]. He has done no service whatsoever for this country. The Iranian people know that he didn't fight ISIS; it was only an oppressive force, that has massacred half a million Syrians and acted against American forces in Iraq." He further added that, "the Islamic Republic, by its broadcast authority and its media outlets, made this man a hero. Some people, who are endowed with less intelligence than average, and some who are connected to the government and work in government bodies, were lured and forced to attend Soleimani's funeral in Ahvaz, Mashhad, Tehran, Qom and Kerman. All the people you see in those videos are less than 5% of the people of Iran. "I dare say [that the other] 95% of the Iranian people expressed joy and happiness at the killing of Qasem Soleimani."

On the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program, the protester said that, "Israel is worried that Iran will get a nuclear bomb, while promising to act if Iran gets close to nuclear capabilities. What is the feeling on the ground towards this threat? Look, the people are sick and tired of the Islamic Republic regime.

"[Iranians] are in no way ready to let this government stay for years and years," he said. "This government has to go at any price, and a secular government, which works in the people's interest, should come to power. For the Iranian people, the reality is that it makes no difference, whether this regime be eliminated by war – an external war – or through a revolution of the Iranian people. "What the Iranian people want with all their being, is that the regime will fall."   "Also in the case of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, the people will not express any support of the regime or any condemnation of such a move by Israel – even though the regime, with its media-siege, wants to show that the people of Iran will completely condemn this move," he said."Every scene you see of Iranian television and media, and every news item you hear, has many exaggerations, and is not the truth. In order to get the truth, it's enough to ask the people: people who speak without any fanaticism," the protester said. "The truth is that among the people, the Islamic Republic regime has no legitimacy or reason for being anymore." 


Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iranian-protester-speaks-to-Israeli-station-I24News-risks-his-life-614492

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Terrorists Can Do No Wrong - Daniel Greenfield

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by Daniel Greenfield

Why the Left supports Iran and blames Trump.

After Iran shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, Iranian protesters filled the streets condemning their own government’s war crime while the Democrats and their media blamed Trump.

"This is yet another example of collateral damage from the actions that have been taken in a provocative way by the president of the United States," Rep. Jackie Speier told CNN.

“This is one of these consequences of this escalation and this state of war that we are in. Having foresight and being able to look at what the consequences are of going to war with Iran, I think, is a serious thing and a responsibility of the present commander-in-chief,” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard insisted.

In the worldview of lefties like Speier and Gabbard, Iran isn’t really responsible for anything. The Islamic terrorist state doesn’t initiate anything, it reacts to our provocative actions. When Iran shoots down a Ukrainian plane, that means that America must have done something wrong to cause the attack.

The Left spent the last 40 years insisting that Iran can’t be blamed for any of its crimes because they all originated from America’s support for the Shah. This isn’t just hyperbole. It’s government policy.

Obama told Iran Deal negotiators that, “part of the psychology of Iran is rooted in the sense that their country was undermined, that the United States or the West meddled in first their democracy and then in supporting the Shah.” He urged them to be sensitive to the “defensive Iran that feels vulnerable”.

According to Obama, Iran was developing nukes, not to destroy Israel or create a Shiite empire in the region, but because it was emotionally scarred by the policies of the Carter administration.

Third world foreign policy applied the moral condescension of liberals toward minorities on a global scale. The same social justice mindset that freed underclass criminals from responsibility for their crimes, blaming them on an oppressive society, liberated entire nations of moral accountability.

Iran’s theocracts, like the street corner mugger, are victims of oppression, instead of their agents.

The same simplistic mathematics of social justice divides the world into the oppressors and the oppressed. The oppressors are the strongest and the most capable, the capitalist pigs and the flag wavers of western nations, while the oppressed are anyone who opposes them by any means.

Only the oppressors have moral agency, while the oppressed are reacting to their oppression.

When the Iranian regime shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, it was responding to President Trump’s oppression, and the entire history of American oppression of Iran going back to the seventies.

Iran didn’t shoot the plane down. 40 years of American oppression did. Just as the homeless guy punching an elderly woman in the face didn’t do it. Gentrification and our class system did.

The Iranian regime didn’t do anything on its own initiative. Just as the guy breaking into your car didn’t do anything. He’s a victim of society. So was General Soleimani. And the guy firing those missiles. Oppressed people don’t have any moral agency. Their only moral activity is resistance. And if the resistance kills a whole bunch of Iranian students in the sky and on the streets, that’s understandable.

As a certain Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter once said of Communist mass murders, “To put it brutally – you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.” Just think of all those folks flying to Canada as more eggs and the IRGC and Soleimani’s old gang as the makers of the omelets of utopia.

The Left responds to an MS-13 beheading in a D.C. suburb or Iran’s missile attacks on a Ukrainian passenger plane with the traditional retort of moral idiots, “What do you expect of oppressed people?”

Oppressed people have no moral agency. They can’t be expected not to hijack planes, murder millions of Cambodian peasants, rape a girl coming home from work in Queens, or knock over a Korean grocery.

They’re oppressed.

Traditional religion believed that we all, barons and serfs, the rich and the poor, the high and the low, have a moral relationship with G-d. The church of social justice rejected this divine relationship, and instead defined morality by our fixed power relationships with one another. And these relationships were defined by group identities, first along the lines of class, then race, gender, religion, sexuality, and an incoming mass of new identities mediated by the evolving system of intersectional victimhood.

The members of the powerful groups were the oppressive sinners and the oppressed were the saints.

The only law was to challenge oppression. Every crime existed within this struggle, the class struggle, the race war, and all the other manifold conflicts against sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, and all the new isms and phobias, their obvious contradictions irrelevant within the greater context.

It doesn’t matter that Iran kills gay people because the real homophobes are white American Christians. Nor does it matter that a black nationalist attacked a synagogue with a machete because the real anti-Semites are white American Christians. It doesn’t matter that Iran shot down a passenger jet filled with its own people because the real ‘jet-shooter-downers’ are President Trump and his supporters.

The bad behavior of oppressed people is a reaction to our oppression. They internalized our homophobia, racism, mass murder of brown people, and when we’re destroyed, they will be purified.

If you understand, as every true lefty does, that America is the source of the world’s evil, then you understand, as House Speaker Pelosi does, that what Iran did to the jet or its protesters, doesn’t matter.

It also didn’t matter how many millions of people Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the rest were killing.

The Left defended the architects of a Communist genocide in Cambodia that killed millions because they were only reacting to the crisis of American imperialism. Communist atrocities in China had likewise been a response to United States foreign policy. Stalin’s crimes, including his alliance with Hitler, were excused on the same grounds, as reactions to American and European policies toward the USSR.

Even Hitler was initially defended as reacting to the unfair burdens imposed by the end of WW1.

That is how we get to the notion that Iran can shoot down a passenger plane and it’s our fault.

The Democrats, the media, academia, and the rest of the train of moral defectives and perpetual resistance members building utopia a million regulations and corpses at a time, consider anyone who opposes America, especially President Trump, to be an ally of their righteous resistance.

In this backward calculus, Iran and China are members of the anti-Trump resistance, the vanguard of the oppressed peoples of the world, while the opponents of these totalitarian regimes, who risk their lives to condemn Xi and Khamenei, are running dogs of the capitalist order, and deserve to be shot.

The oppressors are the oppressed. And the oppressed are the oppressors. Freedom is slavery and slavery is freedom. It’s so simple that you don’t need a PhD level course in Orientalism to understand it.

Just spend a few weeks watching MSNBC until your brain melts.

A century of crimes was excused by progressives who saw a struggle between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. The ‘Them’ were flag-waving bourgeois capitalist scum dedicated to maintaining the existing order. The ‘Us’ was a motley crew that included everyone from western academics and reporters, to mass murdering Communists and, in the latter era, Islamic terrorists who toss gay people off buildings for Allah.

What united the ‘Us’ faction was its opposition to the oppressive order of the United States. The members of this ‘resistance’ might express that opposition by murdering millions of Cambodians, starving Russian peasants, shooting Jews, and shooting down Ukrainian passenger planes, but these are reactions to the oppression of the United States. Or, as Rep. Speier describes them, “collateral damage”. 

The worldview that allows for the murder of Cambodians who wore glasses or Iranian students heading to Canada assumes that the only true moral end is a world revolution against the primal evil of capitalism, globalism, neo-liberalism or whatever the current term in vogue for the existing order is.

This new world order will be utopian. It will no longer need to massacre protesters in the streets, starve peasants, and lubricate the gears of revolution, socialist, Islamic, or otherwise, with human blood.

But, until that blessed day arrives, no one who works to overthrow the existing order and usher in the new order can be held accountable for their crimes no matter how many millions of people they kill.

The means of the new world order justify any and all of the murderous ends.

The media feels obligated to protect Iran as a member of the coalition of the resistance to America. And to America’s current reactionary incarnation in the form of President Trump, MAGA hats, and flag pins.

It colludes in mass murder by brutal tyrannies in the name of a better world.

This better world, we are told, will end racism. Yet robbing people of moral agency because they are different has always been the real racism. There is no worse crime than taking away a man’s morality.

When the Left decided to treat foreign countries the way that it related to domestic minorities, it signed off on mass murder, and became unable to offer a single intelligent opinion about the rest of the world. Adopting social justice as its foreign policy lens convinced it that other nations hate us not because they have their own motives and agendas rooted in over a thousand years of history, most of which predates our existence, but that they are reacting to us and that their lives revolve entirely around our actions.

Speier, Gabbard, and Pelosi have no notion of the history of Islam, or the historic impulses that drive the ambitions of a Khamenei, Erdogan, or Baghdadi. Instead, the idea that they are always reacting to the last thing we did becomes the explanation for everything. That is why every critique of Israel’s actions in Gaza ignores the Muslim Brotherhood’s legacy going back almost a century to focus on the blockade.

If you are going to build up America, Israel, or even Europe, into the villains of the world, it’s best not to have a sense of history, or any idea of what the world was like before the existence of the United States of America, the reborn nation of Israel, or, England and France, but to believe that there was a primeval world filled with wise Islamic astrologers, feminist Greek warriors, Native American shamans, and African dryads, who would have lived in peace, but for the coming of the Industrial Revolution.

This idiotic romanticism cultivated by dilettantes into good art and then bad politics and worse science has killed hundreds of millions of people in the faint hope of returning to a mystical feudalism where life expectancy peaked at forty and the average person couldn’t read or survive an infection. It’s bad enough to condemn the developed world to this madness, but attempts to implement these collective agricultural utopias left miles of bodies strewn across the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia.

The twisted road to the idyllic utopia also requires believing that the civilized are the oppressors and that the savages destroying civilization have no moral agency, but that their violence has a moral end.

And anyone who accepts that premise believes that terrorists can do no wrong.


Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/terrorists-can-do-no-wrong-daniel-greenfield/

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