Iranians Show Sense of Humor, But Get The US Blame Game Wrong

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Russia

President Trump is right about the fate of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, killed in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey: It’s not America’s bag.

But things get murky when the president tells the Nation that America First means we side with Saudi Arabia in its regional wars, among them the vanquishing of Yemen. (There, people are dying from disease and starvation in the tens of thousands, thanks to the House of Saud, also the perps implicated in 9/11.)

The Iranians, on the other hand, are berated for sloganeering against America and Israel, and for “propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria,” which, as I explained, is VERY GOOD FOR CHRISTIANS IN THAT COUNTRY. (Read “Lies About Putin, Syria And The Alawite Alliance.”)

Iran, which has “killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks in the U.S. between 1975-2015,” is said to be “the world’s leading sponsor of terror.” Who said so? The same intelligence apparatus that wishes to unseat President Trump. DeepState.gov?

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday:

“Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of. Perhaps we’re also responsible for the California fires, because we didn’t help rake the forests — just like the Finns do?”

While the Iranians get pointers for impolitic humor, they are still confused about one thing.

The Russians are responsible for the heartbreaking California fires, not the Iranians.

Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari Steps Into The Anti-State Void Opened Up On The Organized* Right

Conservatism, Criminal Injustice, Donald Trump, Free Speech, Intelligence, The State, The West

With his piece, “The Rise Of The Western Dissidents,” Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari steps into the anti-state void opened up on the right, and openly and honestly fingers western governments—the Trump Administration, included—in creating their own imperiled dissidents.

It’s a disgrace. (See my “Assange Is Us”)

those who rightly believe the west is superior to authoritarian regimes must now contend with a troubling trend — the rise of the western dissident.

Chief among them is Julian Assange, who for a half-decade has been forced to live in the tiny Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has claimed political asylum since 2011. Assange claimed that he would be extradited to the U.S. to face charges over his work at WikiLeaks if he left the embassy, and was routinely mocked as paranoid for doing so.

This week, we learned that Assange was right and his critics were wrong. …

Thanks to a clerical error by the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, reporters were able to confirm the existence of sealed criminal charges against the WikiLeaks founder. …

WikiLeaks behaved precisely as any responsible publisher handling sensitive material should, redacting information that could cause harm. The redactions only stopped when they became pointless. Assange is unlikely to have won more than a dozen journalism awards if he were completely reckless in his publications. …

…the only reason Assange is being targeted is that he tangled with the highest levels of the western establishment. In that, he is far from alone.

In the late 2000s to early 2010s, western governments targeted all manner of individuals associated with Assange and the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, including Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda, and The Guardian newspaper.

These days, however, a new class of western dissident has emerged — the populist dissident. …

Who would have thought that the highest court in Europe, home of the enlightenment, would uphold a case in which a woman was prosecuted for blasphemy against Islam?

Who would have thought that Britain, the birthplace of liberalism and the free press, would ban an independent journalist from its shores for satirizing the same religion?

Who would have thought that Germany, whose living memory of the totalitarian Stasi is just three decades old, would put its largest opposition party under surveillance …

… The REST: Bokhari: “Rise of the Western Dissidents”

* This writer is anti-state, but is also unaffiliated and independent.

Left Libertarian Tries Hard To Shed Light on Fake News, But Sheds Only Darkness

Donald Trump, IMMIGRATION, Journalism, libertarianism, Media

On the Trump-Acosta relationship, Reason magazine’s Katherine Mangu Ward writes the usual light, breezy commentary, lacking in gravitas, typical of left-libertarians.

Her eyes are wide shut in wonderment: Fake News Media? What? Where? What’s that?

Via the NYTimes, naturally

Even after two years of this administration, it is alarming to hear a president refer to the press as “the enemy of the people” and to consistently attack and undermine the media as it tries to hold him to account. It’s especially jarring when he singles out individual reporters for criticism.

No wonder Ms. Mangu-Ward got my award for the stupidest statement made to Saint Tucker Carlson, last year, in favor of a border-less America.

She told Tucker that, “If we had a billion people in America, America would be unstoppable. That would be amazing.”
There’s a method to the open-border religion, preached, invariably, from the alternate universe of the TV studio or creature comforts of a stately home.

NEW COLUMN: The New Norm: Crime, But NOT Punishment

America, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democrats, Intelligence, Law, Pop-Culture, Private Property

NEW COLUMN IS “The New Norm: Crime, But Not Punishment.”

It’s now on Townhall.com, slightly abridged, and unabridged on WND.COM and The Unz Review.

An excerpt:

In the title of his magisterial book, Fyodor Dostoevsky paired “Crime and Punishment,” not crime and pardons, or crime and “Civics lessons,” amnesty and asylum.

Punishment must closely follow a crime in order to be both effective as a deterrent, as well as to serve as a public declaration of values and norms.

In explaining Texas justice and its attendant values, stand-up satirist Ron White performed the public service no politician is prepared to perform. “In Texas, we have the death penalty and we use it. If you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back.”

So, where’s such clarity when you need it?

Something has gotten into the country’s lymphatic system. The infection is becoming more apparent by the day, not least in the way matters of life-and-death are debated (or not).

Again-and-again one hears boilerplate statements that fail to properly fix on the defining issues of our time, much less fix them.

Consider the flippancy over threats against persons and property, from within the country and from without it.

The home of Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is surrounded by a small, if menacing, mob, and his family threatened. Before dinging the man’s front door, the assailants chant out their criminal intentions:

“Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night. We know where you sleep.”

To which other talkers, even the wonderful Tucker, respond by vaporizing about rights to speech and protest vs. some or other watered-down peace and security to which private property owners are entitled.

Nobody alludes to the rights of private property or to the fulcrum that is law-and-order.

No demands for arrests are issued or voiced, publicly. No expectation for retribution is set-up. Follow-up is nonexistent in media. Police do not publicize any arrests. If they make them, none are reported by media.

No teachable moments occur.

Remember words like, “Police are requesting the public’s assistance in finding those responsible”? Or, “No arrests have been made, as yet”? Such civilizing utterances have vanished from the nomenclature of media and law enforcement, when discussing acts of trespass, vandalism, and public disorderliness.

Be they within the U.S. or from without it, acts that violate one person’s property rights or the property rights of many—as the Central American caravanners expect to do—these acts don’t conjure the requisite tough talk or actions. …

… READ THE REST. It’s now on Townhall.com, WND.COM and The Unz Review.

https://tinyurl.com/ybwcrevs