The Front Page Cover
2016 The truth will set you free
Featuring:
The Dumbest Idea
by Thomas Sowell
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The Bad Guy Wins in Turkey
Harold Hutchison: Friday's failed coup in Turkey is a setback for human rights, democracy, the United States, and the Middle East in general. You're probably asking why that would be the case when Turkish President Recip Tayyap Erdogan appears to have been democratically elected a number of times. A closer look at Erdogan's conduct, however, shows he is not exactly a hero of freedom and democracy. Quite the contrary — he is a thug dictator.
Erdogan's regime long has been cracking down on the opposition press in Turkey. One opposition party has claimed that nearly 1,900 journalists have lost jobs since Erdogan took power. Opposition media outlets have been fined for covering anti-government demonstrations. The government has the power to shut down websites without a court order, and famously blocked YouTube and Twitter after audio of an incriminating conversation surfaced. A former Miss Turkey was sentenced to a year in jail for allegedly insulting Erdogan, and a 13-year-old was arrested for a Facebook post.
Since the coup collapsed by early Saturday, Erdogan's regime has detained more than 6,000 military officers, soldiers, judges, police officers and others. He declared, "This uprising is a gift from god to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army." While rumors that Erdogan set up the whole thing are likely overblown, he clearly didn't let a crisis go to waste.
More ominously, our NATO ally Turks have ordered a halt to operations at Incirlink Air Base, which is used by the 39th Air Base Wing of the United States Air Force, and which also hosts British, Saudi and German aircraft that carry out strikes against the Islamic State. Not only is Incirlik less than 70 miles from the Syrian border, the United States has a number of "special weapons" stored there, mostly B61 gravity bombs. The base is a critical and strategic launching point for the U.S.
Erdogan has allegedly turned a blind eye to foreign fighters who travel through Turkey to join the Islamic State, and his sympathies have been increasingly Islamist. Under Erdogan's regime, Turkey denied the 4th Infantry Division permission to pass through Turkey to attack Saddam Hussein's regime from the north in 2003. Israel has also come under fire from Erdogan, particularly after the Gaza flotilla incident.
Since the failure of the coup, Erdogan has been moving to target his opponents. His regime is now demanding that the United States hand over Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan's. Gulen runs the Hizmet movement, which runs schools in Turkey. He also appears to be a real example of a moderate Muslim. He supports democracy, education, military action against the Islamic State, interfaith dialogue, and freedom of religion. Gulen cut ties with Erdogan after a 2013 corruption scandal, and since then, Erdogan has been moving to take out the moderate cleric.
Should the United States hand Gulen over to Erdogan, it would be for certain death. Not only would that strengthen the Erdogan regime, it would silence one of the most prominent moderate voices in Islam. That would be a huge loss for the people of the entire Middle East, not just a setback in the War on Terror. Bottom line on the coup: The fact that Erdogan's regime survived means the bad guy has won this round. But as is usually the case in the Middle East, there aren't all that many good guys. -The Patriot Post
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More Chaos on nObama's Watch
Charles Paige: Barack nObama and John hanoi-Kerry's response to the unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey provided additional evidence about which is the real "JV" team. As if that point hadn't already been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. By continually adopting policies that are based on the make-believe world they'd like to have rather the rough and tumble one they're actually living in, nObama and hanoi-Kerry contribute to the instability that dominates current headlines and puts our national interests at great risk. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the attempted coup "adds an alarming twist in world events that already appear to be spiraling out of U.S. control."
A White House press release stated that nObama "reiterated the United States' unwavering support for the democratically-elected, civilian Government of Turkey" during a conference call with his national security team, as if election results are the sole determinant of legitimacy and common interest. Tellingly, Hamas — another "democratically elected civilian government" — released a similar statement. In throwing his "unwavering" support behind Erdogan early, nObama gave a boost to a regime that has steadily been moving into the Islamist camp. It will be ironic if — as many analysts predict — the slide toward authoritarianism accelerates and the last vestiges of real democracy are removed thanks, at least in part, to nObama's endorsement.
Then again, after enduring the last seven and a half years of nObama, perhaps that's not ironic at all.
Although he would almost certainly not present it in this fashion, nObama likely admires the extent to which Erdogan has "fundamentally transformed" Turkey, mirroring many of nObama's own promises — and outcomes. Erdogan promised to rule on behalf of all Turks, but increasingly he does not. He promised to repair the economy, but a recession could be on the horizon. He promised peace, but his combative policies isolated Turkey in the Middle East and estranged it from the West. He promised security, but Turks fear recent bombings are just the tip of the iceberg.
All of that sounds eerily familiar to the "Hope 'n' Change™" mantra nObama and Co. incessantly promoted in 2008. Look where that's got us. And look where Erdogan has Turkey. -The Patriot Post
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OPINION IN BRIEF
Burt Prelutsky: "[E]ven I can't place the entire blame on nObama, either for black crime or for the decline in black employment. After all, he can't compel his fellow blacks to get an education, which is required in an increasingly technological world, or to get married. The fault lies with those who keep electing the dumbest, most corrupt politicians in America, and with the media for making Al Sharpton, who should be serving time for tax evasion and sedition, the spokesman for black America. ... Even half a century after the Civil Rights Act, after 50 years of Affirmative Action, Operation Head Start, trillions of dollars in welfare and small business loans, 72% of those black babies not aborted are born to single, uneducated women. The reality is that it's not much different when it comes to Caucasians. Most of the white prison inmates were raised in homes in which a father was only a rumor. It's not impossible for single women to raise decent, law-abiding children, but it's a lot harder to do it alone, especially when it comes to dispensing discipline and providing a role model for a teenage boy." -The Patriot Post
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nObama’s Links to Pro-Terrorist Groups
by Cliff Kincaid
{aim.org} ~ We now have evidence of contacts between Saudi officials and some of the September 11 hijackers. An old classified document has been declassified... On an equally, if not more important and current matter, what about the evidence of contacts between the nObama White House and the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood? When will we be given a declassified copy of nObama’s Presidential Study Directive-11, or PSD-11, regarding the secret White House backing of the Muslim Brotherhood? Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has proposed a bill to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. It’s called the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act (S.2230). On another equally, if not more important and current matter, what about nObama White House contacts with the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), a support apparatus for cop-killers?...
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The “Sisterhood” in the Media
by Cliff Kincaid
{aim.org} ~ In his “That Bloody Woman” editorial in Chronicles about liar-Hillary Clinton, Chilton Williamson, Jr. writes about the “cadre of aging and bitter feminists” backing the Democrat for president... He says they “would enthusiastically elect a dead woman as president to vindicate the Sisterhood younger women care little about.” It appears this “Sisterhood” is finding its voice in The Washington Post. As the trusted voice of far-left feminism in the nation’s capital, the Post ran these headlines on Saturday afternoon about Donald J. Trump’s decision to pick Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate: “Trump had a problem with women voters. Pence could make it even worse.” What is Pence’s problem? Well, he “has endorsed controversial legislation on abortion and Planned Parenthood.” Post reporter Katie Zezima neglected to mention that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, was founded by Margaret Sanger, a revolutionary socialist and anti-Christian activist who favored government programs to eliminate what she called “human weeds.”... http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-sisterhood-in-the-media/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=email071916&utm_medium=email
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nObama Announces Next Trojan Horse
Stage Of Gestapo Creation
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us| ~ nObama is taking advantage of timing that occurred as a result of tensions and violence that he created and the fact that many of his opponents are distracted by the Republican Convention to announce the next step of his takeover of local law enforcement... He describes his continued plotting of the roll out as “A useful discussion following up on the task force meeting that I had last week as well as a number of conversations that we’ve had with various stakeholders in the wake of the tragic events that we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks.” nObama has, over the last two years, created tensions while simultaneously targeting local law enforcement agencies for litigation abuse and takeover for non-compliance with federalization, replacing individuals that resist if necessary as conditions of consent decrees. The conversations with “stakeholders” and his supposed task force are meetings with his stable of agitators and socialist anti-American “race” groups as well as compliant Democrat police departments that are in on and a part of the federalization takeover scheme...
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Why I Rooted for the Turkish Coup Attempt
by Daniel Pipes
by Daniel Pipes
{danielpipes.org} ~ Having this nearly-minority-of-one stance suggests that an explanation longer than 140 characters is in order. Three reasons account for my supporting the ouster of the apparently democratically elected and democratically ruling president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan... by what are apparently the forces of reaction: Erdoğan stole the election. Erdoğan is an Islamist who initially made his mark, both as mayor of Istanbul and as prime minister of Turkey, by playing within the rules. As time wore on, however, he grew disdainful of those rules, specifically the electoral ones. He monopolized state media, tacitly encouraged physical attacks on opposition-party members, and stole votes. In particular, the most recent national election, on November 1, showed many signs of manipulation. Erdoğan rules despotically. Erdoğan has taken control of one institution after another, even in the two years since he became president, a constitutionally and historically non-political position. Erdoğan uses his despotic powers for malign purposes, waging what amounts to a civil war against the Kurds of southeastern Turkey, helping ISIS, aggressing against neighbors, and promoting Sunni Islamism...And nObama supports Erdogan. http://www.danielpipes.org/16823/why-i-rooted-for-the-turkish-coup-attempt
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Refugees secretly flooding into these states
by Leo Hohmann
{wnd.com} ~ Despite more reports in recent weeks about Muslim “refugees” raping and attacking people in the U.S. and Europe, President nObama has ramped up his Syrian refugee program... delivering 625 to U.S. cities in one week and crossing the 6,000 mark for total Syrians who have entered the country since October. With a little over two months before the Sept. 30 deadline to fulfill his promise to the United Nations to resettle 10,000 Syrians, nObama has delivered 6,227 Syrian migrants to 38 states and dozens of cities. That means more than 1,000 have arrived just since July 1. Of the 6,227 total who arrived since Oct. 1, 2015, only 23 have been Christian and 10 Yazidi. All the of the remaining 6,194 Syrians, more than 98 percent, have been Sunni Muslim. That’s the same sect that makes up the ranks of ISIS, al-Nusra Front and other groups that are viciously persecuting Christians in Syria...He is stepping over the line and should be indicted. Where's Congress? http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/refugees-secretly-flooding-into-these-states/
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Is it Time for the U.S. to Take a Position
on Scarborough Shoal?
by Rear Adm. Michael McDevitt, USN
Scarborough Shoal
{usni.org} ~ Starting in early 2016, Scarborough Shoal suddenly became an issue of serious concern for U.S. officials. According to articles in the press reports information was obtained that strongly suggested that China was about to start turning Scarborough into another artificial island... similar to what they had done in the Spratlys. Apparently, one of the factors that suggested Beijing was about to act was a posting found on a Chinese website that included satellite photographs based on a construction bid proposal that would turn Scarborough into an island base similar to what China has constructed on seven Spratlys Islands. A modern Scarborough airfield with radar and other modern information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) facilities so close to Philippine bases where U.S. has been granted rotational access by the Philippine government possess obvious strategic issues. As shown in the graphic below from the office of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), turning Scarborough into a base with air search radars would allow China to have full-time radar coverage over most of Luzon...
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liar-Clinton Accused of Taking Down
Congressional Website Calling for Perjury Indictment
by Dave Hodges
{thecommonsenseshow.com} ~ It is only one more scandal. The Congressional website which contained a call from 2 Congressmen to prosecute liar-Hillary for perjury has mysteriously been taken down... On July 11, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) sent the following letter to US Attorney Phillps. I have been waiting for action on this item. I went to the Congressional website where I expected to see an update and the site is down and has been down for 2 days. Does liar-Hillary Clinton have that kind of power to erase this kind of evidence with regard to sociopathic criminality? liar-Clinton has escaped the prosecution the Congressmen called for based upon a technicality because she was not under oath when she was questioned. However, I have a source that said they strongly suspect liar-Clinton’s aids in taking down this Congressional website until the Democrats can get the letter removed. You see, it’s now to the point that even die-hard Democrats have had it with her criminality. One more revelation could be the tipping point for many of her supporters... http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2016/07/19/clinton-accused-of-taking-down-congressional-website-calling-for-perjury-indictment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=clinton-accused-of-taking-down-congressional-website-calling-for-perjury-indictment
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Ex-CIA Director Woolsey: "The Administration
Cannot Keep Its Mouth Shut" on War Effort
by SUSAN JONES
by SUSAN JONES
{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ "Military operations require secrecy," former CIA Director James Woolsey told Fox News in a recent interview. He criticized the nObama administration for telling the world -- and Islamic jihadists -- what it plans to do... "The administration cannot keep its mouth shut on these things," Woolsey said on Friday. "Had they been in power during World War II, they probably would have made speeches about how well we were doing breaking the Japanese codes. I have no idea why they do this sort of thing, unless they care more about the public relations than they do about winning the war. "And that is a very serious charge indeed. I'm not making it here, but it is certainly something that you have to start thinking about, when you see everything getting disclosed... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/ex-cia-director-woolsey-the-administration-cannot-keep-its-mouth-shut-on-war-effort?f=must_reads
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The Road To War
by HERBERT LONDON
{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ The road to the future is filled with potholes. This metaphorical sentence speaks to a world war already in process. Despite denials from the present U.S. administration... the war is organized, promoted and managed by radical Islamists. Driven by an ideology, these religious fanatics want to undermine the West so that a global caliphate can be established. The war is in its twenty-fifth year, but the U.S. and its allies still do not understand the magnitude of the struggle. On July 14th, a day celebrating French freedom, Bastille Day, at least eighty-four people were wantonly killed, including ten children. If there were ever a moment for an appropriate response, this is it. Paris, Orlando, Istanbul, San Bernardino, Brussels, stand as stark reminders of the international reach of Islamic terror. And there isn't an end in sight. Moreover, the murderer who killed innocents on the Promenade des Anglais had a history of aggressive views known to French authorities, just as the Orlando killer was investigated by the FBI before his murderous spree. It is not as if clues aren't provided by savage extremists... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-road-to-war?f=must_reads
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nObama Is Lying: Deportations Are DOWN
by Jeff Dunetz
{lidblog.com} ~ President nObama and the open borders people are lying to America. According to their own reports, deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are down again this year and are on pace to be the lowest since 2006... Deportation of criminal illegal immigrants criminally trespassing aliens, are also down despite what nObama tells you about his focus on booting criminal trespassers who commit crimes beyond the crime they committed by entering the United States. According to research by Jessica Vaughan Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. (CIS) the ICE statistics presented to congress through the third week of June, therefore covering approximately 75 percent of the federal fiscal year reveal ICE has completed 168,781 deportations, a slight decline from the same point in 2015, but a continuation of the steep decline that has occurred since 2012, when the administration took steps to suppress interior enforcement and exempt the vast majority of illegal aliens from deportation. ICE is on pace to complete about 230,000 deportations, which would be the lowest number since 2006... http://lidblog.com/obama-is-lying-deportations-are-down/
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US-Backed Syrian Rebel Group Beheads Child
{clarionproject.org} ~ US-backed Syrian rebels, screaming "Allahu Akbar," brutally beheaded a child named Abdullah Issa. The shocking clip shows fighters from Nour-al-din el-Zanki telling the camera... "These are the prisoners from Liwa al-Quds Jerusalem Brigade – a Palestinian militia group. He. Assad can't stoop any lower. He sent us children today, are you sending us children?" America funds Nour-al-din el-Zanki, which fights against the Assad regime. Liwa al-Quds The Jerusalem Brigade is a pro-Assad Palestinian paramilitary group. The rebel group accused the boy of being a spy...
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The Dumbest Idea
by Thomas Sowell
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{townhall.com} ~ If there were a contest for the most stupid idea in politics, my choice would be the assumption that people would be evenly or randomly distributed in incomes, institutions, occupations or awards, in the absence of somebody doing somebody wrong.
Political crusades, bureaucratic empires and lucrative personal careers as grievance mongers have been built on the foundation of that assumption, which is almost never tested against any facts.
A recent article in the New York Times saw as a problem the fact that females are greatly under-represented among the highest rated chess players. Innumerable articles, TV stories and political outcries have been based on an "under-representation" of women in Silicon Valley, seen as a problem that needs to be solved.
Are there girls out there dying to play chess, who find the doors slammed shut in their faces? Are there women with Ph.D.s in computer science from M.I.T. and Cal Tech who get turned away when they apply for jobs in Silicon Valley?
Are girls and boys not allowed to have different interests? If girls had the same interest in chess as boys had, but were banned from chess clubs, that would be something very different from their not choosing to play chess as often as boys do. As for chess ratings, that is not subjective. It is based on which players, with which ratings, you have won against and lost to.
Are women and men not to be allowed to make different decisions as to how they choose to spend their time and live their lives?
Chess is not the only endeavor which can take a huge chunk of time out of your life, and unremitting efforts, to reach the top. If you want to become a top scientist, a partner in a big law firm or a top executive in a major corporation, you are very unlikely to do it working from 9 to 5, or taking a few years off, here and there, to have children and raise them.
Applying the same unsubstantiated assumption to differences in "representation" between different racial and ethnic groups likewise produces many loudly expressed grievances, political crusades, and millions of dollars from lawsuits charging discrimination -- all without a speck of evidence beyond numbers that do not match the prevailing assumptions.
People who base their conclusions on hard facts often reach very different conclusions than those who base their conclusions on the preconception that outcomes would be even or random in the absence of somebody treating somebody wrong.
Something as simple as age differences among groups can doom any assumption of even or random outcomes.
If every 20-year-old Puerto Rican in the United States had an income identical with the income of every 20-year-old Japanese American -- and identical incomes at every other age -- Japanese Americans as a group would still have a higher average income than Puerto Ricans in the United States. That is because the median age of Japanese Americans is more than 20 years older.
People with 20 years more work experience usually make higher incomes. And age difference is just one of many differences between groups.
You can study innumerable groups in countries around the world today, or over centuries of recorded history, without finding a single example of the even or random outcomes that are used as a benchmark for determining discrimination.
Nevertheless, courts of law -- including the Supreme Court of the United States -- use something that has never been found anywhere as a norm to which current realities are to be compared. Billions of dollars, in the aggregate, have changed hands as a result of individual lawsuits charging discrimination.
Life is undoubtedly unfair. But that is not the same as saying that the unfairness occurred wherever the statistics were collected. The origins of this unfairness often go back to different childhood environments for individuals or different geographic or cultural settings for groups and nations.
These differences between nations, as well as differences between individuals and groups, reflect the fact that the world "has never been a level playing field," as economic historian David S. Landes put it. Renowned historian Fernand Braudel said, "In no society have all regions and all parts of the population developed equally."
How long will we continue to take something that has never happened, and never had much chance of happening, as a norm?
Political crusades, bureaucratic empires and lucrative personal careers as grievance mongers have been built on the foundation of that assumption, which is almost never tested against any facts.
A recent article in the New York Times saw as a problem the fact that females are greatly under-represented among the highest rated chess players. Innumerable articles, TV stories and political outcries have been based on an "under-representation" of women in Silicon Valley, seen as a problem that needs to be solved.
Are there girls out there dying to play chess, who find the doors slammed shut in their faces? Are there women with Ph.D.s in computer science from M.I.T. and Cal Tech who get turned away when they apply for jobs in Silicon Valley?
Are girls and boys not allowed to have different interests? If girls had the same interest in chess as boys had, but were banned from chess clubs, that would be something very different from their not choosing to play chess as often as boys do. As for chess ratings, that is not subjective. It is based on which players, with which ratings, you have won against and lost to.
Are women and men not to be allowed to make different decisions as to how they choose to spend their time and live their lives?
Chess is not the only endeavor which can take a huge chunk of time out of your life, and unremitting efforts, to reach the top. If you want to become a top scientist, a partner in a big law firm or a top executive in a major corporation, you are very unlikely to do it working from 9 to 5, or taking a few years off, here and there, to have children and raise them.
Applying the same unsubstantiated assumption to differences in "representation" between different racial and ethnic groups likewise produces many loudly expressed grievances, political crusades, and millions of dollars from lawsuits charging discrimination -- all without a speck of evidence beyond numbers that do not match the prevailing assumptions.
People who base their conclusions on hard facts often reach very different conclusions than those who base their conclusions on the preconception that outcomes would be even or random in the absence of somebody treating somebody wrong.
Something as simple as age differences among groups can doom any assumption of even or random outcomes.
If every 20-year-old Puerto Rican in the United States had an income identical with the income of every 20-year-old Japanese American -- and identical incomes at every other age -- Japanese Americans as a group would still have a higher average income than Puerto Ricans in the United States. That is because the median age of Japanese Americans is more than 20 years older.
People with 20 years more work experience usually make higher incomes. And age difference is just one of many differences between groups.
You can study innumerable groups in countries around the world today, or over centuries of recorded history, without finding a single example of the even or random outcomes that are used as a benchmark for determining discrimination.
Nevertheless, courts of law -- including the Supreme Court of the United States -- use something that has never been found anywhere as a norm to which current realities are to be compared. Billions of dollars, in the aggregate, have changed hands as a result of individual lawsuits charging discrimination.
Life is undoubtedly unfair. But that is not the same as saying that the unfairness occurred wherever the statistics were collected. The origins of this unfairness often go back to different childhood environments for individuals or different geographic or cultural settings for groups and nations.
These differences between nations, as well as differences between individuals and groups, reflect the fact that the world "has never been a level playing field," as economic historian David S. Landes put it. Renowned historian Fernand Braudel said, "In no society have all regions and all parts of the population developed equally."
How long will we continue to take something that has never happened, and never had much chance of happening, as a norm?
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