President Trump may have defended Confederate monuments, but it is Jeff Flake who is fighting for a Lost Cause.
Flake is the son of an Arizona rancher. During his lifetime, he has seen two types of immigrants pour into his state. His heart is with the Manuels and their families. He will probably be defeated by a Trump supporter and get to return to Arizona. I wish him the best.
“The anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is notorious for campus violence and disruption directed at Israelis and pro-Israeli students and faculty.
We have featured dozens of incidents of shout-downs and disruptions of events, including physical acts of intimidation. Many of these incidents are discussed in our post, With campus shout downs, first they came for the Jews and Israel.
In an extremely dangerous development, anti-Israel pro-BDS faculty are organizing a nationwide campus Antifa network.”
—————-
“According to the Inside Higher Ed article, they claim they are not seeking violence, but the wording of their responses is ambiguous:
Mullen said CAN’s approach to protests will be to protect those most vulnerable to attack and “to build large, unified demonstrations against fascists on campuses when they come.”
Asked specifically about the possible use of violence, Palumbo-Liu said antifa activists include those whose tactics CAN would reject. “We would advocate self-defense and defense in various forms of those who are being threatened by fascists, but not violence,” he added, saying his group can’t control the antifa label or who ascribes to it.
Palumbo-Liu and Mullen, the organizers of the campus Antifa network, are two of the most aggressive anti-Israel pro-BDS faculty members in the country. They each have long histories of demonizing Israel and supporting the academic boycott of Israel.
Palumbo-Liu, who was once dubbed Stanford’s Most Radical Professor, was featured in a post we did about the dangerous blockade of the San Mateo Bridge by anti-Israel protesters, Anti-Israel activists caused car crashes on San Mateo Bridge.
Mullen also is one of the most aggressive BDS faculty activists, well known for his BDS activities at Purdue.
This fits a pattern of anti-Israel activists co-opting and hijacking other movements, something we explored in: If you are surprised #BlackLivesMatter joined war on Israel, you haven’t been paying attention.
Under the leadership of anti-Israel, pro-BDS faculty, expect the campus Antifa network to be re-directed against Israel, Israelis and Jews. We’ve seen this in Chicago, where Jewish symbols were banned at an LGBT event, and Jewish LGBT groups have been attacked.”
“A grand jury has indicted Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s former IT aide Imran Awan on four counts. The indictment includes his wife Hina Alvi, who escaped to Pakistan with their daughters earlier this year.
Authorities arrested Awan at Dulles airport in July, where he planned to fly to Pakistan after he wired almost $300,000 to the country.”
————–
“From Fox News:
Awan and other IT aides for House Democrats have been on investigators’ radar for months over concerns of possible double-billing, alleged equipment theft, and access to sensitive computer systems. Most lawmakers fired Awan in February, but Schultz had kept him on until his arrest in July.
The indictment itself, which merely represents formal charges and is not a finding of guilt, addresses separate allegations that Awan and his wife engaged in a conspiracy to obtain home equity lines of credit from the Congressional Federal Credit Union by giving false information about two properties – and then sending the proceeds to individuals in Pakistan.
In February, reports surfaced that four House employees face an investigation for breaching House IT systems and stealing equipment.Media named Hina, Abid, Imran, and Jamal in reports the following days. Lawmakers fired the four when the suspicions arose and barred the brothers “from computer networks at the House of Representatives.”
The House members included three congressmen on the intelligence panel and three on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The officials suspect the four of “accessing members’ computer networks without their knowledge and stealing equipment from Congress.”
The Representatives affected include Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), and then-Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY).
Wasserman Schultz kept Awan on her payroll, though. She did not fire him until after his arrest.”
“Brad Dacus was thousands of miles away in California last weekend when the Charlottesville protest erupted, so he was flabbergasted when CNN labeled his Pacific Justice Institute a “hate group.”
“Here are all the active hate groups where you live,” said the CNN wire story headline on Chicago’s WGN-TV website.
The article listed the 917 organizations on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s much-disputed “hate map,” which names racist groups like the Aryan Nation alongside mainstream conservative organizations such as the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council.
Mr. Dacus’ conservative Sacramento-based institute, which specializes in religious-liberty cases, was featured on the CNN list right below the Pacific Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
“Why is the Southern Poverty Law Center doing this? It’s simple. They want to vilify and isolate anyone that doesn’t agree with their very extremist leftist policy and ideology,” said Mr. Dacus. “This isn’t about defending civil rights; this is about attacking civil rights.”
Other conservative groups blasted CNN and called on the cable network to retract the article.
“I am shocked that CNN would publish such a false report on the heels of the Charlottesville tragedy,” said Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel’s founder and chairman. “To lump peaceful Christian organizations, which condemn violence and racism, in with the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists is offensive. This is the epitome of fake news and is why people no longer trust the media.”
Conservatives have repeatedly called out media outlets this year for uncritically repeating the SPLC’s “hate group” label, calling it inaccurate and arguing that it has put their organizations at risk for violence.
It’s not hypothetical. In 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins shot and wounded a Family Research Council security guard and later told authorities that he wanted to kill as many employees as possible after finding the group on the SPLC’s “hate map.”
Less than a week after a terrorist attack, it appears the main concern is to not limit the terrorist’s organization free speech and expressing concern about the group who opposed and fought the terrorists. Bizarre world.
I would expect law enforcement to go all out and find all those associated with the terrorist groups and even charge them with something. After all, it took less to be sent to Gitmo. And at Standing Rock, the police pepper sprayed and arrested people who were praying. America has really gone soft on terrorism here.
Instead law enforcement has gone all out to protect the remaining southern statues vowing to charge anyone for tearing down or just defacing the statue. Strange priorities — I would like to think they would be more concerned with a heavily armed group marching through a southern town screaming Nazi slogans.
When the rule of law goes down, it doesn’t always fall on your side. That’s why just laws and law enforcement are important. Anarchists are not fighting to change the law. They are fighting to destroy it. That only empowers and encourages fringe groups to act in kind. It is not pretty now, and will be much uglier the longer it continues and grows. And that is why we work so hard to change laws in the legislature, and maintain good ones in the judiciary. If this falls apart, it may be an interesting sideshow for outsiders, but only for a short time. Nothing good comes of lawlessness. And it has a tendency to spread.
Law enforcement lost a lot of credibility on the left not just in Charlottesville but throughout the US. Police shootings/brutality, selective exercising of 2nd amendment rights, use of police and national guard by corporations at Standing Rock, the coddling of the militia at Oregon, etc have in recent memory have contributed to this. The popularity of the antifa is partially a result of the left watching biased and discriminatory law enforcement.
In Charlottesville, the police stood by the Nazis confronted counter protests. In the breech, stepped in the antifa. You don’t want this to happen but law enforcement needs to stop the coddling of right wing terror groups.
Trump needs to add a strong, smart communications person like a Brit Hume. It would also be good if he could add a strong conservative economic adviser to balance Cohn.
He already has a good Cabinet. At that point he would need to use them and be disciplined. The economy is so good right now. He still has a chance to rebound.
HRW, The police have become more passive after the cop/black incidents. When cops become passive, cities turn into Detroits. Any law-abiding person who can escape does so.
The loss of Bannon in the WH likely confirms and solidifies the loss of the economic vision that propelled Trump to the presidency. I’m officially UNoptimistic. :–/
… There is a movement now to take down our nation’s statues, at the moment primarily those of Confederate soldiers and generals. The reason is that they fought on behalf of a region that sought to maintain a cruel and immoral system, chattel slavery, which they did. But slavery was not only a Southern sin, it was an American one.
The Tear It Down movement is driven by the left and is acceded to by some on the right. This is the sophisticated stance. I do not share it. We should not tear down but build.
When a nation tears down its statues, it’s toppling more than brass and marble. It is in a way toppling itself—tearing down all the things, good, bad and inadequate, that made it. Or, rather, everyone. Not all of what made America is good—does anyone even think this?—but why try to hide from that?
When you tear down statues, you tear down avenues of communication between generations. Statues teach. You walk by a statue of Robert E. Lee with your 7-year-old, and he asks who that is. You say he was a great general. When he’s 8, on the same walk, you explain the Civil War. When he’s 10 you explain what was at issue, and how Lee was not only on the losing side but the wrong side. This is part of how history is communicated. We’re not doing it so well in our schools. It will be sad to lose another venue.
Condi Rice said it well, before the current controversy. She did not agree with the impulse to tear down. “Keep your history before you,” she said. Keep it in your line of sight.
And once the tearing down starts, there’s no knowing where it will end. On this the president is right. Once the local statues are purged the Tear-Downers will look to Statuary Hall, and the names of military bases, and then on to the Founders, to the slave-holding Washington and Jefferson. Then, perhaps, to their words and ideas. In what way will that help us? …
… Here is a better way. Leave what is, alone. Be a noble people who inspire—and build—more statues. I’d like one that honors the families of the victims in the Charleston (church) shooting.
More statues, not fewer; more honor, not more debris. More debris is the last thing we need.
__________________________________
Roscuro, your recent post on the run up to the Holocaust made me wonder if you had read Erwin Lutzer’s book on that. I believe it was called The Twisted Cross .
Wow — Buchanan really took the mask off or should I say hood?
Noonan’s logic is flawed. Tearing down statutes of Lee will not lead to the tearing down of the Jefferson/Lincoln or FDR monuments. The former statures honour a man who defended a nation founded in opposition to the US whereas the latter founded and persevered the union. Its not hard to eliminate the slippery problem she raises.
As for the education argument, don’t be silly — take your students to Gettysburg. You don’t need a statute to teach — there are books, or is the modern education system reduced to pictograms and memes?
I do however like the view expressed in a picture I saw last night — We need to view them as participation trophies. Perhaps they can have Good Effort inscribed below (but not Try Again)
With the exit of Bannon, the professionals are winning. The internationalists and corporatists faction is gaining more power and influence. With the Goldman Sachs, Exxon, and the military industrial complex personnel firmly in powerful positions, the corporatist take over of the state will continue.
Debra you may want to come and join me on the dark side. Trump has demonstrated his rhetoric and promises to mean nothing other than they operate at the pleasure of the corporation.
Ricky, I wonder how you square your positions — you value southern heritage and culture yet endorse the internationalism of the corporate state. Capitalism doesn’t value heritage and cultural differences. Its a homogenizing force. If I was a southern man, I’d be less worried about the participation trophy and more worried about capitalism slowly taking over southern culture. What made the south unique is being lost to the forces of universal consumerism while the populace is distracted by statutes.
“In One Tweet, Donald Trump Just Spread Fake History, Libeled a Hero, and Admired an Alleged War Crime”
“Trump is almost certainly referring to a story he told during the campaign. He claimed that General John J. Pershing crushed an Islamic insurgency in the Philippines by committing a heinous war crime. Here’s Trump at a South Carolina rally:
‘They were having terrorism problems, just like we do,” Trump said. “And he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. Okay? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem’
There are multiple problems with this story. First, it’s false. There’s no evidence Pershing did such a thing. In fact, he got the history exactly backwards. Pershing worked hard to avoid inflaming religious fanaticism and worked hard to avoid unnecessary loss of life. For example, read this excerpt from a letter Pershing wrote to the insurgents. The language comes from his own memoir: . . .”
Kathleena, I remember a title of that name, but as there was also a documentary of the same title, I’m not sure if I actually read the book. I think it might have been the documentary we watched, and the book that my younger sibling read. She went into even deeper detail on the Holocaust than I did, and the books I read on the subject were often on her recommendation. Other material stands out more clearly in my mind than The Twisted Cross.
Roscuro @1:45 It has not escaped my notice that Buchanan periodically drives too close to the ditch. It is that occasional propensity that has prevented me from promoting some of his columns which contain some otherwise good ideas. Even so, his is an intelligent and experienced political mind and I have read his articles fairly often and mined for useful nuggets.
HRW, Violence begets violence, and lawlessness does not stay in its own lane on the highway. The Lincoln Memorial was defaced (again) a few days ago. I’m afraid this has all been a big distraction anyway to take attention away from the change in economic and political focus. There is still time for a correction…. [optimism dies hard ;–) ]
Kizzie, I saw that on FB. I search out as original sources I can on material, so I google Pershing’s book My Life Before the World War and then searched in the book for the words “pig” and “grave”. As should not be surprising to anyone who applies Occam’s Razor (“the simplest explanation is probably the correct one to news stories, Pershing’s account shows that the horrible tale Trump told is incorrect because:
a) Pershing himself does not appear to have been directly involved in the measure – burying a corpse with a pig – that he relates;
b) the whole part about 50 bullets dipped in pig’s blood is a wild fabrication that should be recognized a mile off (dirty bullets lead to guns exploding);
c) the account does not involve an execution, but rather the shooting of an assassin who was on a rampage and is only briefly related to give context to an ongoing problem which he was dealing with;
d) it is not at all true that all incidents stopped after such a measure was taken, as he notes it only “sometimes deterred would-be assassins” and he had to institute a disarmament program.
But why taken my word for it when you can read the account for yourself? I can’t copy and past the paragraphs, so here is the link: https://books.google.ca/books?id=aNfrnkW2AF4C&q=pig+grave#v=snippet&q=pig%20grave&f=false (Click on the search results box with the highlighted words to see the entire account)
I would add that while burying someone with a pig would be an insult to anyone (not just Muslims), from my knowledge of Islam contact with pigs would not be enough to make them think that the person buried with a pig would be going to hell. It is the eating of pork that is haram (forbidden). Alcohol is also haram in Islam, but the use of alcohol swabs to simply clean the skin before a finger prick blood test or needle isn’t generally a problem.
hwesseli, obviously, the motivation to tear down Lee “statutes” (sic) isn’t that he fought for secession, but that he fought on the side of legal slave ownership. Noonan isn’t the one who fails to distinguish between Lee statute and America’s founders; she’s saying there isn’t really anything, according to Tear It Down principles, to stop the progression to Washington, Jefferson, et al. And she’s right, because there *have* been calls to tear down stuff of those guys.
Debra, my mother, when the subject of racism and the Holocaust is discussed, often recounts a story she heard on the radio, of an elderly Jewish man visiting the Holocaust Memorial, and leaving with tears in his eyes. When a reporter asked him about why he was crying, his reply was, “I realized that I was capable of the same evil as the Nazis were.” My mother recounts this story to illustrate that none of us should make the mistake of thinking we are immune from being racist. As she often quotes from Paul, “Let he that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” I know from personal experience that when I get really frustrated with someone, the first thing my mind wants to focus on is on what way they are different than me, which is a subtle way of looking for what way I’m better than them. Such a response may be natural, but sin is natural. The instinctive response is not always the correct one.
HRW, The antebellum South always believed in free trade and had a vigorous trade with Europe and other nations. The North favored and imposed a protective tariff and sought to force Southerners to buy Northern manufactured goods rather than European products. This was one of the major issues between the parties. Northern financial support for John Brown’s raid was another.
I’ve talked on here before about Buchanan’s former employer’s, Nixon’s, aid-for-population-control foreign policy, which was essentially racist. Today, I started wondering – when you are unwell and physically unfit for much exertion, you have a lot of time to wonder about things – about how the book, Fatal Misconception, which documented that policy, amongst other population control atrocities, was received. I found this book review by Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times, who was clearly uncomfortable with what the book had to say. He concluded with this paragraph, which I’m afraid made me laugh cynically and remember why I tend to have the political attitude of “a plague o’ both your houses” (Shakespeare):
It’s certainly fair of Connelly to dredge up the forced sterilizations, the casual disregard for injuries caused by IUDs, the racism and sexism and all the rest — but we also need to remember that all that is history. The family planning movement has corrected itself, and today it saves the lives of women in poor countries and is central to efforts to reduce poverty worldwide. If we allow that past to tarnish today’s efforts by family planning organizations, women in poor countries will be doubly hurt.(Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/review/Kristof-t.html?mcubz=1)
While everyone’s harping about Bannon, Charlottesville and statues and Russian hacking, we are unaware of the real threat to our American way of life.
DETROIT (WWJ) – Would you like to lose weight, have more energy, better health? Then stop eating cheese.
That’s according to Dr. Neal Barnard, who’s down on dairy.
Barnard says while Americans seem to have a love affair with cheese, it’s more of an unhealthy addiction. He makes his case in his book “The Cheese Trap.”
“I think it’s addicting; and I don’t use the addicting word lightly,” he told WWJ’s Dr. Deanna Lites. “There are actually opiate chemicals in it that attach to the very same brain receptors as other opiates, and I’m going to argue that it’s probably the biggest reason that we’re seeing kids gain weight these days.”
“Snopes, a myth-busting site, came to the same conclusion: “We haven’t yet found any references to this alleged incident in Pershing biographies, however, nor does it match the way Pershing is generally recorded as having dealt with the Moros in 1911,” the site concludes.
It may have been out of character for Pershing, but it may not have been out of character for other U.S. troops. Trump did hit on an unfortunate truth that the occupation of the Philippines involved deliberate attempts—at least among the ranks—to use religious taboos to intimidate people.
In 1941, TIME ran a letter to the editor from a soldier named J. R. McKey who had served with Pershing in the Philippines decades before. In the letter, McKey describes using pigs in burials to deter Muslim insurgent activities, but does not ascribe the act to Pershing.
McKey wrote, “U.S. soldiers … had a pretty good cure for juramentado [Moro swordsmen] activities. Knowing the horror of the Mohammedan for any contact with swine, and particularly with its blood, these American roughnecks, when they had killed a juramentado, held for him a very public funeral. The body of the defunct bad man having been deposited in the grave, a pig was brought, stuck, its blood sprinkled freely over the D B M, the dead pig thrown in with him, and the burial completed.”
Some reports do say that Pershing was engaged in burying Muslims with pigs or throwing pig’s blood on them. According to the History News Network, a Chicago Daily Tribune article from 1927 describes Pershing sprinkling prisoners with pig’s blood, then setting them free to warn others of being doused with the blood. “Those drops of porcine gore proved more powerful than bullets,” the article wrote.
Christopher Capozzola, a history professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also cited an incident in which Pershing brought a pig’s head to a ceasefire negotiation with a Muslim leader.”So yes, there were deliberate efforts to offend Muslim Filipinos’ religious sensibilities,” Capozzola told TIME. “And yes, there was large-scale violence against their communities. But I know of no event like the one that Mr. Trump describes.”
You have to admit that my 4:38 is at least as important as anything you have seen on the news the past week.
FoxNews has made the word ALERT trivial. Like the air raid sirens that went off at noon years ago. Alert Trump has fired Bannon. ALERT George Washington is no longer father of our country. (I just made that up, but it may be next.
I strongly resent the implication that those of us who like cheese are addicts. I can quit any time. It is ridiculous to suggest that cheese causes weight gain. My weight loss during my time at school had nothing to do with the fact I had to limit my cheese intake due to a severe dairy allergy of someone in the house where I rented. My suspicion is that ‘Dr.’ Barnard is being paid by the soy industry to spread lies about their rivals, so the soy producers can corner the market on cheese-like substances.
His conclusions are consistent with what I heard from clients this week.
As people have discussed here, the whole Charlottesville incident has been seen differently by the public and the media. The media and the left have focused on Trump’s characterization of Alt-Right marchers. The right has focused on the desire of the left to remove historic monuments.
My clients and friends’ support for Trump has really increased over the last week. Even I took the anti-mocking vow. It has been a strange week.
For a while we hoped that perhaps they’d been moved to be photographed. But by mid-afternoon it was clear that the blocks of cheese, worth around £500, had been taken at some point between the show closing on Saturday night and reopening on Sunday morning. There’s no CCTV of them being moved, which is strange, as they’re quite big, weighing 20kg each. It does seem premeditated…
Just when you think we can’t sink any lower. From Roscuro’s link above….
We offered a £500 reward for information leading to the safe return of the cheese or the arrest of the thief or thieves. That was the worst thing we ever did, as we’ve had phone calls saying, “I work with this guy and he’s never had cheese sandwiches before, and he’s come in this morning, and honestly the slices of cheese are bigger than the bread.” Some people are trying to help, but we’ve not had any real leads.
I hope that wherever the cheese is, it’s being enjoyed. I like the thought of people having a huge picnic, or feeding a school for a year. I don’t like the idea of some evil collector keeping it in a fridge with his very expensive wines.
Kizzie, I heard the discussion about the Pershing story yesterday on Michael Medved’s radio program — and Colson told the story in one of his books of a survivor realizing the bitter truth — that the Nazis could not be dismissed as “monsters;” they were all too human; and we’d do well to remember that we are, too.
“Understanding the biblical concept of the Fall,” John said, “keeps us from finding the enemy only in the other, as if the problem is always outside of ourselves. No, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, ‘the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.’” …
Colson: … A dramatic illustration of this truth took place thirty years ago, when Israeli agents captured Adolph Eichmann, one of the masterminds of the Nazi holocaust, and brought him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes.
Among the witnesses called to testify against Eichmann was a small, haggard man named Yehiel Dinur. He had survived brutal torture in the death camp at Auschwitz. Dinur entered the courtroom and he stared at the man who had presided over the slaughter of millions— including many of Dinur’s own friends.
As the eyes of the victim met those of the mass murderer, the courtroom fell silent. Then, suddenly, Dinur literally collapsed to the floor, sobbing violently.
Was he overcome by hatred? By memories of the stark evil that Eichmann had committed?
No. As Dinur explained later in a riveting interview on “60 Minutes,” what struck him was that Eichmann did not look like an evil monster at all; he looked like an ordinary person. Just like anyone else. In that moment, Dinur said, “I realized that evil is endemic to the human condition—that any one of us could commit the same atrocities.”
In a remarkable conclusion, Dinur said: “Eichmann is in all of us.”
This is what the Bible means when it talks about sin. In our therapeutic culture, people cringe when they hear words like evil and sin. We’d prefer to talk about people as victims of dysfunctional backgrounds. But there are times when it becomes obvious that those categories are simply insufficient—times when the evil in the human heart breaks through the veneer of polite society and shows us its terrifying face.
Eric Metaxas: Folks, what happened in Charlottesville will be the focus of a lot of talk for the foreseeable future—especially as protests and counter protests pop up around the country. So, as Chuck went on to say, why not use these events “as an opportunity to press home to your family and your friends the profound truth of the biblical teaching on sin.” That the events unfolding on our TV screens and newsfeeds “ought to remind us that all of us are in revolt against God,” and that the “only salvation for any of us is repentance and grace.” …
______________________________________
Wandering Views 
President Trump may have defended Confederate monuments, but it is Jeff Flake who is fighting for a Lost Cause.
Flake is the son of an Arizona rancher. During his lifetime, he has seen two types of immigrants pour into his state. His heart is with the Manuels and their families. He will probably be defeated by a Trump supporter and get to return to Arizona. I wish him the best.
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They are now singing Confederate songs in Belgium.
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A little Pat Buchanan:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2017/08/18/americas-second-civil-war-n2370179%3famp=true
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Great. The anti-Israel BDS and Antifa are teaming up.
What could possibly go wrong?
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/08/anti-israel-profs-organizing-antifa-campus-network/
“The anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is notorious for campus violence and disruption directed at Israelis and pro-Israeli students and faculty.
We have featured dozens of incidents of shout-downs and disruptions of events, including physical acts of intimidation. Many of these incidents are discussed in our post, With campus shout downs, first they came for the Jews and Israel.
In an extremely dangerous development, anti-Israel pro-BDS faculty are organizing a nationwide campus Antifa network.”
—————-
“According to the Inside Higher Ed article, they claim they are not seeking violence, but the wording of their responses is ambiguous:
Mullen said CAN’s approach to protests will be to protect those most vulnerable to attack and “to build large, unified demonstrations against fascists on campuses when they come.”
Asked specifically about the possible use of violence, Palumbo-Liu said antifa activists include those whose tactics CAN would reject. “We would advocate self-defense and defense in various forms of those who are being threatened by fascists, but not violence,” he added, saying his group can’t control the antifa label or who ascribes to it.
Palumbo-Liu and Mullen, the organizers of the campus Antifa network, are two of the most aggressive anti-Israel pro-BDS faculty members in the country. They each have long histories of demonizing Israel and supporting the academic boycott of Israel.
Palumbo-Liu, who was once dubbed Stanford’s Most Radical Professor, was featured in a post we did about the dangerous blockade of the San Mateo Bridge by anti-Israel protesters, Anti-Israel activists caused car crashes on San Mateo Bridge.
Mullen also is one of the most aggressive BDS faculty activists, well known for his BDS activities at Purdue.
This fits a pattern of anti-Israel activists co-opting and hijacking other movements, something we explored in: If you are surprised #BlackLivesMatter joined war on Israel, you haven’t been paying attention.
Under the leadership of anti-Israel, pro-BDS faculty, expect the campus Antifa network to be re-directed against Israel, Israelis and Jews. We’ve seen this in Chicago, where Jewish symbols were banned at an LGBT event, and Jewish LGBT groups have been attacked.”
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Meanwhile, in a real collusion scandal involving foreign players…..
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/08/grand-jury-indicts-wasserman-schultzs-former-it-aide-on-four-counts/
“A grand jury has indicted Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s former IT aide Imran Awan on four counts. The indictment includes his wife Hina Alvi, who escaped to Pakistan with their daughters earlier this year.
Authorities arrested Awan at Dulles airport in July, where he planned to fly to Pakistan after he wired almost $300,000 to the country.”
————–
“From Fox News:
Awan and other IT aides for House Democrats have been on investigators’ radar for months over concerns of possible double-billing, alleged equipment theft, and access to sensitive computer systems. Most lawmakers fired Awan in February, but Schultz had kept him on until his arrest in July.
The indictment itself, which merely represents formal charges and is not a finding of guilt, addresses separate allegations that Awan and his wife engaged in a conspiracy to obtain home equity lines of credit from the Congressional Federal Credit Union by giving false information about two properties – and then sending the proceeds to individuals in Pakistan.
In February, reports surfaced that four House employees face an investigation for breaching House IT systems and stealing equipment.Media named Hina, Abid, Imran, and Jamal in reports the following days. Lawmakers fired the four when the suspicions arose and barred the brothers “from computer networks at the House of Representatives.”
The House members included three congressmen on the intelligence panel and three on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The officials suspect the four of “accessing members’ computer networks without their knowledge and stealing equipment from Congress.”
The Representatives affected include Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), and then-Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY).
Wasserman Schultz kept Awan on her payroll, though. She did not fire him until after his arrest.”
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The smearing continues. Everyone to the right of the far-left SPLC is a hate group now.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/17/hate-group-map-lists-mainstream-conservative-organ/
“Brad Dacus was thousands of miles away in California last weekend when the Charlottesville protest erupted, so he was flabbergasted when CNN labeled his Pacific Justice Institute a “hate group.”
“Here are all the active hate groups where you live,” said the CNN wire story headline on Chicago’s WGN-TV website.
The article listed the 917 organizations on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s much-disputed “hate map,” which names racist groups like the Aryan Nation alongside mainstream conservative organizations such as the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council.
Mr. Dacus’ conservative Sacramento-based institute, which specializes in religious-liberty cases, was featured on the CNN list right below the Pacific Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
“Why is the Southern Poverty Law Center doing this? It’s simple. They want to vilify and isolate anyone that doesn’t agree with their very extremist leftist policy and ideology,” said Mr. Dacus. “This isn’t about defending civil rights; this is about attacking civil rights.”
Other conservative groups blasted CNN and called on the cable network to retract the article.
“I am shocked that CNN would publish such a false report on the heels of the Charlottesville tragedy,” said Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel’s founder and chairman. “To lump peaceful Christian organizations, which condemn violence and racism, in with the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists is offensive. This is the epitome of fake news and is why people no longer trust the media.”
Conservatives have repeatedly called out media outlets this year for uncritically repeating the SPLC’s “hate group” label, calling it inaccurate and arguing that it has put their organizations at risk for violence.
It’s not hypothetical. In 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins shot and wounded a Family Research Council security guard and later told authorities that he wanted to kill as many employees as possible after finding the group on the SPLC’s “hate map.”
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Less than a week after a terrorist attack, it appears the main concern is to not limit the terrorist’s organization free speech and expressing concern about the group who opposed and fought the terrorists. Bizarre world.
I would expect law enforcement to go all out and find all those associated with the terrorist groups and even charge them with something. After all, it took less to be sent to Gitmo. And at Standing Rock, the police pepper sprayed and arrested people who were praying. America has really gone soft on terrorism here.
Instead law enforcement has gone all out to protect the remaining southern statues vowing to charge anyone for tearing down or just defacing the statue. Strange priorities — I would like to think they would be more concerned with a heavily armed group marching through a southern town screaming Nazi slogans.
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When the rule of law goes down, it doesn’t always fall on your side. That’s why just laws and law enforcement are important. Anarchists are not fighting to change the law. They are fighting to destroy it. That only empowers and encourages fringe groups to act in kind. It is not pretty now, and will be much uglier the longer it continues and grows. And that is why we work so hard to change laws in the legislature, and maintain good ones in the judiciary. If this falls apart, it may be an interesting sideshow for outsiders, but only for a short time. Nothing good comes of lawlessness. And it has a tendency to spread.
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Bannon is out.
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Law enforcement lost a lot of credibility on the left not just in Charlottesville but throughout the US. Police shootings/brutality, selective exercising of 2nd amendment rights, use of police and national guard by corporations at Standing Rock, the coddling of the militia at Oregon, etc have in recent memory have contributed to this. The popularity of the antifa is partially a result of the left watching biased and discriminatory law enforcement.
In Charlottesville, the police stood by the Nazis confronted counter protests. In the breech, stepped in the antifa. You don’t want this to happen but law enforcement needs to stop the coddling of right wing terror groups.
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Trump needs to add a strong, smart communications person like a Brit Hume. It would also be good if he could add a strong conservative economic adviser to balance Cohn.
He already has a good Cabinet. At that point he would need to use them and be disciplined. The economy is so good right now. He still has a chance to rebound.
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HRW, The police have become more passive after the cop/black incidents. When cops become passive, cities turn into Detroits. Any law-abiding person who can escape does so.
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What Pat Buchanan also said: http://buchanan.org/blog/if-we-erase-our-history-who-are-we-127510
Dreher’s horrified response: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/buchanan-shameful-defense-of-white-supremacy/
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I totally agree with Rod Dreher here, Roscuro.
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The loss of Bannon in the WH likely confirms and solidifies the loss of the economic vision that propelled Trump to the presidency. I’m officially UNoptimistic. :–/
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From Peggy Noonan:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-tangle-of-rhetorical-inadequacy-1503012472
_________________________________
… There is a movement now to take down our nation’s statues, at the moment primarily those of Confederate soldiers and generals. The reason is that they fought on behalf of a region that sought to maintain a cruel and immoral system, chattel slavery, which they did. But slavery was not only a Southern sin, it was an American one.
The Tear It Down movement is driven by the left and is acceded to by some on the right. This is the sophisticated stance. I do not share it. We should not tear down but build.
When a nation tears down its statues, it’s toppling more than brass and marble. It is in a way toppling itself—tearing down all the things, good, bad and inadequate, that made it. Or, rather, everyone. Not all of what made America is good—does anyone even think this?—but why try to hide from that?
When you tear down statues, you tear down avenues of communication between generations. Statues teach. You walk by a statue of Robert E. Lee with your 7-year-old, and he asks who that is. You say he was a great general. When he’s 8, on the same walk, you explain the Civil War. When he’s 10 you explain what was at issue, and how Lee was not only on the losing side but the wrong side. This is part of how history is communicated. We’re not doing it so well in our schools. It will be sad to lose another venue.
Condi Rice said it well, before the current controversy. She did not agree with the impulse to tear down. “Keep your history before you,” she said. Keep it in your line of sight.
And once the tearing down starts, there’s no knowing where it will end. On this the president is right. Once the local statues are purged the Tear-Downers will look to Statuary Hall, and the names of military bases, and then on to the Founders, to the slave-holding Washington and Jefferson. Then, perhaps, to their words and ideas. In what way will that help us? …
… Here is a better way. Leave what is, alone. Be a noble people who inspire—and build—more statues. I’d like one that honors the families of the victims in the Charleston (church) shooting.
More statues, not fewer; more honor, not more debris. More debris is the last thing we need.
__________________________________
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Roscuro, your recent post on the run up to the Holocaust made me wonder if you had read Erwin Lutzer’s book on that. I believe it was called The Twisted Cross .
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Wow — Buchanan really took the mask off or should I say hood?
Noonan’s logic is flawed. Tearing down statutes of Lee will not lead to the tearing down of the Jefferson/Lincoln or FDR monuments. The former statures honour a man who defended a nation founded in opposition to the US whereas the latter founded and persevered the union. Its not hard to eliminate the slippery problem she raises.
As for the education argument, don’t be silly — take your students to Gettysburg. You don’t need a statute to teach — there are books, or is the modern education system reduced to pictograms and memes?
I do however like the view expressed in a picture I saw last night — We need to view them as participation trophies. Perhaps they can have Good Effort inscribed below (but not Try Again)
With the exit of Bannon, the professionals are winning. The internationalists and corporatists faction is gaining more power and influence. With the Goldman Sachs, Exxon, and the military industrial complex personnel firmly in powerful positions, the corporatist take over of the state will continue.
Debra you may want to come and join me on the dark side. Trump has demonstrated his rhetoric and promises to mean nothing other than they operate at the pleasure of the corporation.
Ricky, I wonder how you square your positions — you value southern heritage and culture yet endorse the internationalism of the corporate state. Capitalism doesn’t value heritage and cultural differences. Its a homogenizing force. If I was a southern man, I’d be less worried about the participation trophy and more worried about capitalism slowly taking over southern culture. What made the south unique is being lost to the forces of universal consumerism while the populace is distracted by statutes.
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“In One Tweet, Donald Trump Just Spread Fake History, Libeled a Hero, and Admired an Alleged War Crime”
“Trump is almost certainly referring to a story he told during the campaign. He claimed that General John J. Pershing crushed an Islamic insurgency in the Philippines by committing a heinous war crime. Here’s Trump at a South Carolina rally:
‘They were having terrorism problems, just like we do,” Trump said. “And he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. Okay? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem’
There are multiple problems with this story. First, it’s false. There’s no evidence Pershing did such a thing. In fact, he got the history exactly backwards. Pershing worked hard to avoid inflaming religious fanaticism and worked hard to avoid unnecessary loss of life. For example, read this excerpt from a letter Pershing wrote to the insurgents. The language comes from his own memoir: . . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/450574/donald-trump-tweet-fake-history-libel-war-crime
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Kathleena, I remember a title of that name, but as there was also a documentary of the same title, I’m not sure if I actually read the book. I think it might have been the documentary we watched, and the book that my younger sibling read. She went into even deeper detail on the Holocaust than I did, and the books I read on the subject were often on her recommendation. Other material stands out more clearly in my mind than The Twisted Cross.
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Roscuro @1:45 It has not escaped my notice that Buchanan periodically drives too close to the ditch. It is that occasional propensity that has prevented me from promoting some of his columns which contain some otherwise good ideas. Even so, his is an intelligent and experienced political mind and I have read his articles fairly often and mined for useful nuggets.
HRW, Violence begets violence, and lawlessness does not stay in its own lane on the highway. The Lincoln Memorial was defaced (again) a few days ago. I’m afraid this has all been a big distraction anyway to take attention away from the change in economic and political focus. There is still time for a correction…. [optimism dies hard ;–) ]
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Kizzie, I saw that on FB. I search out as original sources I can on material, so I google Pershing’s book My Life Before the World War and then searched in the book for the words “pig” and “grave”. As should not be surprising to anyone who applies Occam’s Razor (“the simplest explanation is probably the correct one to news stories, Pershing’s account shows that the horrible tale Trump told is incorrect because:
a) Pershing himself does not appear to have been directly involved in the measure – burying a corpse with a pig – that he relates;
b) the whole part about 50 bullets dipped in pig’s blood is a wild fabrication that should be recognized a mile off (dirty bullets lead to guns exploding);
c) the account does not involve an execution, but rather the shooting of an assassin who was on a rampage and is only briefly related to give context to an ongoing problem which he was dealing with;
d) it is not at all true that all incidents stopped after such a measure was taken, as he notes it only “sometimes deterred would-be assassins” and he had to institute a disarmament program.
But why taken my word for it when you can read the account for yourself? I can’t copy and past the paragraphs, so here is the link: https://books.google.ca/books?id=aNfrnkW2AF4C&q=pig+grave#v=snippet&q=pig%20grave&f=false (Click on the search results box with the highlighted words to see the entire account)
I would add that while burying someone with a pig would be an insult to anyone (not just Muslims), from my knowledge of Islam contact with pigs would not be enough to make them think that the person buried with a pig would be going to hell. It is the eating of pork that is haram (forbidden). Alcohol is also haram in Islam, but the use of alcohol swabs to simply clean the skin before a finger prick blood test or needle isn’t generally a problem.
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hwesseli, obviously, the motivation to tear down Lee “statutes” (sic) isn’t that he fought for secession, but that he fought on the side of legal slave ownership. Noonan isn’t the one who fails to distinguish between Lee statute and America’s founders; she’s saying there isn’t really anything, according to Tear It Down principles, to stop the progression to Washington, Jefferson, et al. And she’s right, because there *have* been calls to tear down stuff of those guys.
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Debra, my mother, when the subject of racism and the Holocaust is discussed, often recounts a story she heard on the radio, of an elderly Jewish man visiting the Holocaust Memorial, and leaving with tears in his eyes. When a reporter asked him about why he was crying, his reply was, “I realized that I was capable of the same evil as the Nazis were.” My mother recounts this story to illustrate that none of us should make the mistake of thinking we are immune from being racist. As she often quotes from Paul, “Let he that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” I know from personal experience that when I get really frustrated with someone, the first thing my mind wants to focus on is on what way they are different than me, which is a subtle way of looking for what way I’m better than them. Such a response may be natural, but sin is natural. The instinctive response is not always the correct one.
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HRW, The antebellum South always believed in free trade and had a vigorous trade with Europe and other nations. The North favored and imposed a protective tariff and sought to force Southerners to buy Northern manufactured goods rather than European products. This was one of the major issues between the parties. Northern financial support for John Brown’s raid was another.
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I’ve talked on here before about Buchanan’s former employer’s, Nixon’s, aid-for-population-control foreign policy, which was essentially racist. Today, I started wondering – when you are unwell and physically unfit for much exertion, you have a lot of time to wonder about things – about how the book, Fatal Misconception, which documented that policy, amongst other population control atrocities, was received. I found this book review by Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times, who was clearly uncomfortable with what the book had to say. He concluded with this paragraph, which I’m afraid made me laugh cynically and remember why I tend to have the political attitude of “a plague o’ both your houses” (Shakespeare):
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While everyone’s harping about Bannon, Charlottesville and statues and Russian hacking, we are unaware of the real threat to our American way of life.
DETROIT (WWJ) – Would you like to lose weight, have more energy, better health? Then stop eating cheese.
That’s according to Dr. Neal Barnard, who’s down on dairy.
Barnard says while Americans seem to have a love affair with cheese, it’s more of an unhealthy addiction. He makes his case in his book “The Cheese Trap.”
“I think it’s addicting; and I don’t use the addicting word lightly,” he told WWJ’s Dr. Deanna Lites. “There are actually opiate chemicals in it that attach to the very same brain receptors as other opiates, and I’m going to argue that it’s probably the biggest reason that we’re seeing kids gain weight these days.”
😆
It was that cheese all the time.
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Trump got the story wrong, but some details are correct.
http://time.com/4235405/donald-trump-pig-blood-muslims-story/
“Snopes, a myth-busting site, came to the same conclusion: “We haven’t yet found any references to this alleged incident in Pershing biographies, however, nor does it match the way Pershing is generally recorded as having dealt with the Moros in 1911,” the site concludes.
It may have been out of character for Pershing, but it may not have been out of character for other U.S. troops. Trump did hit on an unfortunate truth that the occupation of the Philippines involved deliberate attempts—at least among the ranks—to use religious taboos to intimidate people.
In 1941, TIME ran a letter to the editor from a soldier named J. R. McKey who had served with Pershing in the Philippines decades before. In the letter, McKey describes using pigs in burials to deter Muslim insurgent activities, but does not ascribe the act to Pershing.
McKey wrote, “U.S. soldiers … had a pretty good cure for juramentado [Moro swordsmen] activities. Knowing the horror of the Mohammedan for any contact with swine, and particularly with its blood, these American roughnecks, when they had killed a juramentado, held for him a very public funeral. The body of the defunct bad man having been deposited in the grave, a pig was brought, stuck, its blood sprinkled freely over the D B M, the dead pig thrown in with him, and the burial completed.”
Some reports do say that Pershing was engaged in burying Muslims with pigs or throwing pig’s blood on them. According to the History News Network, a Chicago Daily Tribune article from 1927 describes Pershing sprinkling prisoners with pig’s blood, then setting them free to warn others of being doused with the blood. “Those drops of porcine gore proved more powerful than bullets,” the article wrote.
Christopher Capozzola, a history professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also cited an incident in which Pershing brought a pig’s head to a ceasefire negotiation with a Muslim leader.”So yes, there were deliberate efforts to offend Muslim Filipinos’ religious sensibilities,” Capozzola told TIME. “And yes, there was large-scale violence against their communities. But I know of no event like the one that Mr. Trump describes.”
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You have to admit that my 4:38 is at least as important as anything you have seen on the news the past week.
FoxNews has made the word ALERT trivial. Like the air raid sirens that went off at noon years ago.
Alert Trump has fired Bannon.
ALERT George Washington is no longer father of our country. (I just made that up, but it may be next.
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Cheese…who knew!!!??? 🧀
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I strongly resent the implication that those of us who like cheese are addicts. I can quit any time. It is ridiculous to suggest that cheese causes weight gain. My weight loss during my time at school had nothing to do with the fact I had to limit my cheese intake due to a severe dairy allergy of someone in the house where I rented. My suspicion is that ‘Dr.’ Barnard is being paid by the soy industry to spread lies about their rivals, so the soy producers can corner the market on cheese-like substances.
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Now you get it, Roscuro! Welcome to the Cult of Conspiracy…any conspiracy will do. :–)
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Another article from Dreher.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-is-more-in-touch-than-you-think/
His conclusions are consistent with what I heard from clients this week.
As people have discussed here, the whole Charlottesville incident has been seen differently by the public and the media. The media and the left have focused on Trump’s characterization of Alt-Right marchers. The right has focused on the desire of the left to remove historic monuments.
My clients and friends’ support for Trump has really increased over the last week. Even I took the anti-mocking vow. It has been a strange week.
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The anti-cheese conspiracy is real, real, I tell you! And it’s spread to the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/18/experience-someone-stole-my-cheese?CMP=fb_gu
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Just when you think we can’t sink any lower. From Roscuro’s link above….
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Putting the nacho cheese Doritos down now.
Kizzie, I heard the discussion about the Pershing story yesterday on Michael Medved’s radio program — and Colson told the story in one of his books of a survivor realizing the bitter truth — that the Nazis could not be dismissed as “monsters;” they were all too human; and we’d do well to remember that we are, too.
http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/08/breakpoint-the-eichmann-in-all-of-us/
From a recent Breakpoint radio program:
________________________________
It’s called the Fall.
“Understanding the biblical concept of the Fall,” John said, “keeps us from finding the enemy only in the other, as if the problem is always outside of ourselves. No, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, ‘the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.’” …
Colson: … A dramatic illustration of this truth took place thirty years ago, when Israeli agents captured Adolph Eichmann, one of the masterminds of the Nazi holocaust, and brought him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes.
Among the witnesses called to testify against Eichmann was a small, haggard man named Yehiel Dinur. He had survived brutal torture in the death camp at Auschwitz. Dinur entered the courtroom and he stared at the man who had presided over the slaughter of millions— including many of Dinur’s own friends.
As the eyes of the victim met those of the mass murderer, the courtroom fell silent. Then, suddenly, Dinur literally collapsed to the floor, sobbing violently.
Was he overcome by hatred? By memories of the stark evil that Eichmann had committed?
No. As Dinur explained later in a riveting interview on “60 Minutes,” what struck him was that Eichmann did not look like an evil monster at all; he looked like an ordinary person. Just like anyone else. In that moment, Dinur said, “I realized that evil is endemic to the human condition—that any one of us could commit the same atrocities.”
In a remarkable conclusion, Dinur said: “Eichmann is in all of us.”
This is what the Bible means when it talks about sin. In our therapeutic culture, people cringe when they hear words like evil and sin. We’d prefer to talk about people as victims of dysfunctional backgrounds. But there are times when it becomes obvious that those categories are simply insufficient—times when the evil in the human heart breaks through the veneer of polite society and shows us its terrifying face.
Eric Metaxas: Folks, what happened in Charlottesville will be the focus of a lot of talk for the foreseeable future—especially as protests and counter protests pop up around the country. So, as Chuck went on to say, why not use these events “as an opportunity to press home to your family and your friends the profound truth of the biblical teaching on sin.” That the events unfolding on our TV screens and newsfeeds “ought to remind us that all of us are in revolt against God,” and that the “only salvation for any of us is repentance and grace.” …
______________________________________
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https://twitter.com/kevinnr/status/898667147525632001
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