Victor Davis Hanson: "You Gotta Lie" "Oh, What a tangled progressive web we weave"

No one wishes to discuss candidly that universities are no longer free bastions of inquiry but are descending into would-be boot camps to train progressive shock troops.

National Review  "The entire menu of race, class, and gender identity politics, lead-from-behind foreign policy, political correctness, and radical environmentalism so far have not won over most Americans. 

"Proof of that fact are the serial reliance of their supporters on deception, and the erosion of language on campus and in politics and the media. The progressive movement requires both deceit and euphemism to mask its apparently unpopular agenda. 

"What the Benghazi scandal, the Bowe Bergdahl swap, and the Iran Deal all had in common was their reliance on ruse. If the White House and its allies had told the whole truth about all these incidents, Americans probably would have widely rejected the ideological premises that framed them." . . .  Read more.

Trump's Red Line

Victoria Taft

Cartoon: First 100 days

NetRightDaily

America’s ‘Smug-Liberal Problem’; It’s hard to win converts with mockery.

Yes, there is a smug-liberal problem in America, one that smart liberals recognize. Stephens is right. You don’t win converts with mockery. You can sometimes win grudging compliance, but you mainly make enemies — especially when your mockery reveals your own ignorance and inconsistency. But as we know, the smug liberal doesn’t care. They want to make enemies. After all, how do they measure their own virtue? When the Right rages, they rejoice. The unbelievers deserve their pain.

National Review  "The only people who can’t recognize that our nation has a “smug liberal” problem are smug liberals. Case in point, smug liberal (and television comedienne) Samantha Bee. On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Bee to react to a pre-election Ross Douthat column that called out Bee and other late-night comics in part for creating a comedy world of “hectoring monologues,” full of comedians who are “less comics than propagandists — liberal ‘explanatory journalists’ with laugh lines.”

"We’re all familiar with the style. It features the generous use of selective clips from Fox News, copious amounts of mockery, and a quick Wikipedia- and Google-search level of factual understanding. The basic theme is always the same: Look at how corrupt, evil, and stupid our opponents are, look how obviously correct we are, and laugh at my marvelous and clever explanatory talent. It’s like sitting through an especially ignorant and heavy-handed Ivy League lecture, complete with the sycophantic crowd lapping up every word.

"Bee, the host of TBS’s Full Frontal, of course, couldn’t see the problem and not only told Tapper that she didn’t think there was a smug-liberal problem, she also howlingly added that in her own show, “We always err on the side of comedy.” . . .
Read more

Stephen Colbert under fire for outrageous Trump-Putin gay sex ‘joke’ — Video
Stephen Colbert to Trump: “The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster.” http://thebea.st/2oZYnD2 .    Read more.

"Sad, isn’t it? Still, it tells us everything we need to know about the left.  Imagine the outrage if someone said this about Barack Obama on broadcast television…"

China, the Norks, and THAAD

Rich Terrell

What Is THAAD, What Does It Do, and Why Is China Mad About It?
. . . "So, from the Chinese perspective, a THAAD deployment could shift the strategic stability needle ever so slightly away from its status quo equilibrium and advantage the United States, giving Washington better early warning and tracking of Chinese ICBMs. That, in itself, doesn’t seem like a serious impingement on China’s security or its nuclear deterrent. What’s interesting is reading China’s worries about a THAAD and AN/TPY-2 deployment on the Korean peninsula together with murmurs that Beijing is growing increasingly interested in a launch-on-warning nuclear posture. Does a THAAD deployment affect the credibility of China’s second-strike capabilities by giving the United States a greater early warning edge? Perhaps, but, as Lyon notes above, the difference would be marginal given the AN/TPY-2s already in Japan." . . .

North Korea 'deliberately detonated missile during failed weekend test because it was heading for RUSSIA'

The North is technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, and regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Satellite images have revealed how North Korea is preparing to trial [launch] its arsenal of submarine rockets amid fears of an impending nuclear test

. . . "Pictures of the Nampo Naval shipyard on the country's west coast show dictator Kim Jong-un has 'imported' a new barge so his navy can carry out underwater test missile launches.

"The 68ft barge is identical to another seen at the Sinpo South shipyard on the east coast which has been involved in up to six test launches since 2014."

. . . 

"According to 38North, which monitors North Korea, there has been no sign that the barge was constructed on the west coast, suggesting it may have been acquired from abroad.

"The design is similar to a Russian submersible test stand barge, but it is not clear which country it was imported from.

"They are often used to test missile tubes and launch systems before they are installed in submarines." . . .

Remember the crowds protesting when Obama banned immigrants?

Ruthfully Yours  "Crowds, crowds, crowds!  Or, in some cases, are they a mob of useful idiots?  As Ed Lasky noted, the hysterical reaction of the anti-Trump crowd, erroneously called civil and human rights defenders, to President Trump (R)’s executive order temporarily banning visitors and immigrants from a few Muslim-majority terrorist countries (not a ban on Muslims) is hypocritical.  (The Women’s March and the airport mobbers all look alike – all sound and fury, signifying nothing but moral narcissism.)

"Below is a photo from the massive crowds in Chicago protesting former (thank goodness!) President Barack Hussein Obama (D)’s 2011 order banning Iraqi refugees for six months." . . .

. . . "Perhaps if a large crowd greeted Syed Rizwan Farook as he brought his mail-order bride, Tashfeen Malik, a Pakistani national raised in Saudi Arabia, into America breezing through Chicago’s O’Hare airport over two years ago, they could have convinced them to love the USA instead of plotting to slaughter innocent Americans.

"This twisted, evil Muslim (yes, a coincidence I know) couple bonded over their hatred of America, its people and their freedoms, and their religions, going on to gun down many in San Bernardino, California in December 2015.

"If Malik had already radicalized years ago, how did she get the go-ahead to immigrate to the United States in 2014?" . . .

The former dry bones of Jews are alive and thriving. Happy Independence Day, Israel!

Ethel C. Fenig  "Today is Israel's Independence Day. Daniel Greenfield so eloquently explains, starting with Yechezkel (Ezekiel)'s comparison of the Jewish people to a scattered skeleton of dry bones in a barren valley:

And He said unto me: 'Son of man, can these bones live?' And I answered: 'O Lord GOD, Thou knowest.

Then He said unto me: 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.

Therefore prophesy, and say unto them: Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, O My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel.

"And so it happened.  Seventy-two years after Europe, under the leadership of Germany, thought it had finally solved its "Jewish problem" by slaughtering over six million Jews along with untold millions of others, 50 years after the Muslim countries sought to do the same to the Jews in Israel, Israel is celebrating its 69th anniversary as a free and independent Jewish country in this modern era.  It wasn't easy then, and maintaining it now, in the face of enemies still fanatically devoted to destroying it, has met setbacks.  But the country continues to joyously thrive with an ever increasing population:" . . .

. . . Iconic photo of Israeli paratroopers entering the Western Wall for the first time. In the 1967 six-day war.

Climate-Change Activists Are the Real Science Deniers

Hurricane Gladys Over The Gulf Of Mexico, 1968

National Review  "The epithet “climate denier,” intended to invoke Holocaust denial, has always been tasteless and inapt. Climate change is not like the Holocaust, nor is questioning the accuracy and predictive power of a scientific model like questioning the historical fact of a genocide that murdered 6 million Jews. But climate activists delighted in defining their opposition this way, with help from prominent figures such as Barack Obama, who in 2014 used Twitter to condemn “climate change deniers” and promote a website, run by Organizing for Action (formerly Obama for America), that featured large black-and-white pictures of then–House speaker John Boehner and Senator Marco Rubio atop a green “Climate Change Deniers” banner. “On climate,” asked the site’s headline, “whose side are you on?”

"For a while, this seemed to work. Framing the climate debate as one between noble keepers of the scientific flame and people akin to Nazis gave the former group license to say almost anything. To the casual observer, even the most egregious exaggeration about climate science could seem reasonable compared with its outright rejection. Thus, Obama’s assertion in his 2015 State of the Union address that “no challenge — no challenge — poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change” became widely accepted. When Senator Bernie Sanders warned during a presidential debate that “the scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change . . . the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable,” he was not laughed off the stage.  (California's drought is forever!)

"Often, the politicians and pundits targeted with the “denier” label did deserve blame. Ignoring the best available scientific research — an obvious starting point in any other policy debate — was irresponsible or dishonest. Their arguments rarely emerged from any valuable scientific insight, but usually from a fear that acknowledging the scientific basis of climate change would mean accepting radical and costly responses. This was doubly counterproductive: Not only did it grant by default a mainstream foothold to outlandishly overblown climate fears, but also it sidelined and undermined more important and compelling policy-based objections to the activist agenda." . . .

People's Climate March: A Demonstration Of First World Madness

CAREER OVER: Kaepernick ANGRY That Nobody Wants Him. . .

"What's your response?"

Freedom Daily   "Last year San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick famously knelt and sat during the national anthem to protest police brutality against African Americans in the United States. But people were not pleased with his actions and protested him and his team in return. Now the NFL is protesting him in the best possible way.

"Kaepernick is now a free agent looking for a new team after the 49ers dropped him. It is the first time in his career this has happened to him. An AFC manager said his free agent status is the result of several things,

• His low performance level compared to before
• Fear of backlash from fan base for bringing him on
• Owners and teams hatred of him
"The AFC manager who remains anonymous told reporters the following,

“They [the NFL owners] want nothing to do with him. They won’t move on. They think showing no interest is a form of punishment. I think some teams also want to use Kaepernick as a cautionary tale to stop other players in the future from doing what he did.”

"When people asked Kaepernick why he was refusing to participate in the national anthem he just repeated the narrative garbage from the Black Lives Matter movement citing discrimination. He even shared sympathizing memes on social media of Fidel Castro, the well-known Cuban communist, dictator."
What about the guy - Eric Reid - who knelt beside him? Reid said he won't do that any more.

The Taliban-like attack on New Orleans's history

"The attack on New Orleans's historic monuments is an omen of worse to come.  History itself tells us this, just as surely as it tells us the story of the Confederates.  It is hoped that the fight-back will grow."

 In a similar vein, ISIS destroyed early Christian sites

Monica Showalter   "Totalitarians always seek to erase history.

The sad preamble to the horror of 9/11 was in the Taliban's brazen destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, a magnificent old relief sculpture that stood as testimony to Afghanistan's rich and many-layered history as a crossroads of civilization.  To know of that history was anathema to the Taliban, which wanted absolute power over the lives of the Afghanis they terrorized.  Allowing the Buddhas to stand could only allow Afghanis to take strength from their past.

"The same dynamic was also seen in 1917, when the Bolshevik atheists destroyed most of Russia's abundant churches and synagogues, literally grinding their relics into the mud and leaving hollowed out dead shells to spiritually devastate the devout public.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote at length about this effort to deracinate Russia from its past to create a spiritual "exhaustion" or wasteland.

"We see the same dynamic now with the left's movement to wholesale destruction of Confederate monuments in New Orleans.  The Washington Post has an interesting, fairly reported article on an old Confederate group's effort to stop this postmodern move from the radical left.  Like the Confederacy itself, it's probably a lost cause, but it's heartening to see some fight-back, because the Confederacy deserves to be known and understood objectively, meaning neither romanticized nor demonized.  Wiping out the evidence of its existence deracinates New Orleans from its history and makes it just another generic U.S. city with nothing to speak for it other than crime and the other failures of Democratic one-party rule." . . .

Cartoon added. See accompanying article below*

. . . "My other thought is this: if the left succeeds in destroying Confederate monuments, who do you think is going to be next?  It's California's mission heritage.  California's fascinating history began with the work of selfless Franciscan friars who sought to save the souls of Indians as their religious mission by setting up missions whose cities now bear their lives.  But they also sought to save Indians' lives.  Spanish troops were slaughtering native Americans across two continents on the grounds that they found them "useless."  It happened in Argentina; it happened a lot of places.  The Franciscans of California, by teaching the Indians skills, destroyed the Spanish justification for massacring the Indians.  It's significant to me that real descendants of California's Indian tribes understand this and know this history in all its good and bad aspects objectively, while left-wing activists – who seek to erase this California history as well as its beautiful architectural legacy – completely ignore it." . . ."

*Burn, loot and pillage! Destruction of antiques during China’s Cultural Revolution.   What useful idiots do.

Colleges Try to Get Rid of Inconvenient Professors

The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

"College officials have cultivated a nice image for themselves—scholarly people who care deeply about providing the best possible education for their students. The reality, however, is often very different. They can be petty, self-serving, and ideological, sometimes sacrificing educational quality in favor of other objectives.

"Occasionally, faculty members become inconvenient to the leadership and must be eliminated. Two recent cases show college leadership at its worst.

"Consider Professor Dennis Gouws of Springfield College in Massachusetts. Peter Wood explains in this Federalist article that on March 27, Springfield’s dean of arts and sciences, Anne Herzog, sent Professor Gouws a letter informing him that he had been placed on “Official Warning Status.” That sounds ominous—what had he done?

Cartoon added by TD

"His story begins in 2005, when Gouws was asked by the Springfield English department to teach a course entitled “Men in Literature.” It turned out to be a rather popular course and Gouws, who holds tenure, taught it eight times between 2005 and 2015. But in 2015 a student lodged a complaint against the course with school leaders. It wasn’t that Professor Gouws had mistreated her, but simply that the course content, focused only on men, bothered her.

"In a sensible era, officials would have said, “Well, then take something else if you’re offended,” but “progressive” academics seem incapable of insisting on common sense from students these days, especially if they’re in one of our supposedly oppressed groups. At Springfield, the result of the student’s gripe was to trigger what Wood terms “a feminist jihad” against a veteran, highly capable faculty member." . . . 

AntiFa Threatens Violence If Portland Oregon GOP And Trump Supporters Don’t Pull Out Of Annual Parade

More background on this issue last week.

CSC Media Group USA

"AntiFa scare tactics seem to be working in Portland Oregon.

"The Multnomah County GOP released a statement on Tuesday announcing that they have been directly threatened by AntiFa.

"They were sent an email (which you can see below) that stated if they actually participate in the parade, AntiFa will have 200 or more people rush the parade and forcibly remove the GOP and Trump supporters from the parade.

"The group known as Direct Action Alliance, as well as smaller offshoots, have even created Facebook event specifically for this violence!" . . .

From Lars Larson