The Shanksville Side of 9/11

The holy ground of Flight 93, one of 9/11’s enduring mysteries

by  Bill Sternberg at USA TODAY   

We will never forget the lives lost on September 11th at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. USA TODAY

Though we do not know their full story, we know their sacrifice.

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. — As horrific as the 9/11 attacks were, they would have been even worse if not for a heroic group of everyday airline passengers whose remains rest here amid a common field of wildflowers and hemlock groves.

Eighteen years ago on Wednesday, radical Islamic terrorists, trained in Afghanistan as part of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, hijacked four commercial jetliners and aimed them at the emblems of America’s financial and military might.

Two destroyed the twin towers of Manhattan’s World Trade Center. The third smashed into the Pentagon. And the fourth — United Airlines Flight 93 — crashed, upside down, at 563 miles per hour outside this small town, just 20 minutes flying time from the nation’s capital.

Lingering questions

What was the ultimate target of Flight 93? That remains one of the enduring mysteries of 9/11.

The authoritative 9/11 Commission report notes that the hijackers had turned the navigation to guide the Boeing 757 toward Washington. But the report is inconclusive about the final destination: The objective of Ziad Jarrah, the pilot among the hijackers, “was to crash his airliner into symbols of the American Republic, the Capitol or the White House.”

Have we learned more since the report was issued?

“There is no new evidence so far as I am aware,” Chris Kojm, who served as the commission’s deputy director, tells me in an email. “Bin Laden wanted the hijackers to hit the White House. (Ringleader) Mohamed Atta was focused on the Capitol because it is an easy target to find. We really don’t know what Ziad Jarrah and Flight 93 planned to hit.”

A 9/11 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The Tower of Voices is a 93-foot tall musical instrument that will contain 40 uniquely pitched wind chimes to honor the passengers and crew members that were aboard Flight 93. (Photo: Bill Sternberg/USA TODAY)

In either case, the decision of the unarmed Flight 93 passengers to fight back against their hijackers spared many lives and prevented the even greater blow to America’s psyche that smashing a center of U.S. government would have brought.

To anyone who lived through 9/11, the story of Flight 93 is familiar. But a whole new generation has been born since 2001. The Flight 93 National Memorial serves as both a moving history lesson and a reminder of a time when America was more unified.

The memorial that enshrines the sacrifice of 40 people

The first thing you notice about the 2,200-acre site is how quiet it is. Four days before the 18th anniversary, gentle breezes turn the wind turbines in the distance. The mostly clear sky is reminiscent of the deep blue one on 9/11.

“You’re on holy ground. It’s goose bumps every time,” says Maryann Brett of nearby Johnstown, Pennsylvania, as she stands on the observation platform, looking out at the crash site and memorial plaza. “This is peaceful. … You can’t be divided when you are here.”

An exhibit inside the visitors’ center relates the story of Flight 93. It tells how the flight took off 25 minutes late because of air traffic delays in Newark, New Jersey. How the four hijackers, seated in first class, took control at 9:28 a.m. over eastern Ohio. How passengers used Airfones to contact loved ones and learned of the other attacks. How, in one heartbreaking recording, a passenger left the code to her safe on an answering machine. How an Airfone operator heard passenger Todd Beamer, who worked for Oracle, tell his fellow flyers, “Are you ready? OK. Let’s roll.”

And how, after a desperate struggle, at 10:03 a.m. Flight 93 came down, killing all 33 passengers and seven crew members.

“They made the ultimate sacrifice to help us,” says Craig Sutherly, a first-time visitor from Ada, Ohio, as he stands in front on the Wall of Names. Nearby, a 17-ton sandstone boulder marks the site of impact.

Here in the Laurel Highlands, politics and partisan bickering seem far away. You can’t help but wonder what might have been if not for the courageous actions of the Americans aboard Flight 93. You can’t help but yearn for the sense of unity that fleetingly brought the nation together after the 9/11 attacks.

And you can’t help but regret that it takes a devastating tragedy to overcome what separates us.

Bill Sternberg is the editor of the editorial page. Follow him on Twitter: @bsternbe

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/11/flight-93-911-anniversary-enduring-mysteries-column/2269018001/

Dems Fascism at Work in Pittsburgh

“This Is Insane”: Leftists Begin Blacklist In Pittsburgh To Get Trump-Supporters’ Businesses “Closed Down”

by Ed Morrissey   at  HotAir:

Debra Messing would be proud, eh? The effort to destroy the livelihoods of those who do not accept The Approved Groupthink has expanded outside of Hollywood all the way to Pittsburgh. Either oppose Donald Trump in 2020 or get run out of town on a rail, small business owners!

Local social media is abuzz over efforts in Pittsburgh to identify and boycott businesses owned by supporters of President Donald Trump.

“I think it’s important because people have a right to know where their money is going,” Pittsburgh blogger Brian Broome told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Tuesday. …

“If there is a specific ideology that you don’t support, you are well within your rights not to hand that money to someone who supports that ideology,” says Broome. “Trump supporters have boycotted everything from Keurig to Nike, so I don’t know why, quote-unquote, the other side can’t decide not to give their money to businesses as well.”

Except that it’s not just a boycott, even by the terms of the now-suspended Facebook post. The boycotts that Broome cites are a withholding of personal custom, aimed at large corporations. This effort takes aim at small businesses, and it’s not to deprive the businesses of personal patronage. They want to chase these people out of business altogether:

The new website promises to include, “a database of Trump-supporter owned businesses in the Pittsburgh area, as well as tips for how to get those specific businesses closed down.”

That’s not a boycott. It’s a manifesto for street action against political opponents, no matter what the cost. Too bad about all the lost jobs, I suppose, but ya gotta crack a few eggs to make a socially acceptable omelette, people.

The local Republican Party chair has a word for this, or actually a few of them. Fascist, absurd, dangerous — take your pick, although Sam DeMarco probably should have stopped at those:

“They want to cost people their livelihoods just because you don’t agree with them politically?” asks Allegheny County councilman Sam DeMarco, who also chairs the county’s Republican Party.

“It’s not just absurd, but I believe it’s dangerous.” …

“Look at what they’re trying to do. People who they just don’t agree with, they want to take and punish. I absolutely believe this is a fascist behavior, and I totally reject it,” says the GOP chairman.

DeMarco’s parallel to the Nazis’ labeling of Jewish-owned businesses is over the top. That was a government-based effort, made even more clear with the Nuremberg Laws that followed shortly thereafter. However, it’s not anywhere near as benign as Broome would have it, either. This effort wants to destroy the livelihood of Americans over their political differences, rather than just having a debate over politics. That’s dangerous in its own way without tripping over Godwin’s Law to explain why.

Let’s give Hollywood conservative John O’Hurley the last word in explaining this phenomenon. O’Hurley is focused on Messing’s “lunacy” and its aim at purging Hollywood of conservative thought. “It underscores the fact that we aren’t receptive to a diversity of thought, which is the exact opposite of what you feel the liberal way would be,” O’Hurley says, “and I find that obscene.” It’s obscene in Pittsburgh, too.

“This is insane”: Leftists begin blacklist in Pittsburgh to get Trump-supporters’ businesses “closed down”

Fascistic Washington Post Support for Fascist ANTIFA Violence!

WASHINGTON POST SHILLS FOR ANTIFA

by Paul Mirengoff   at PowerLine:

Here is the opening paragraph of the Washington Post’s account of a rally by a group called Proud Boys protesting the exclusion of some activists from social media:

Hundreds of D.C. police officers descended on the area around Washington’s Freedom Plaza on Saturday, preventing antifascists from clashing with right-wing demonstrators during dueling rallies near the White House.

Who were these “antifascists”?

Police on bicycles and on foot quickly broke up skirmishes and prevented black-clad, hooded leftist antifascists, known as antifa, from erecting barricades in streets with toppled newspaper boxes and chairs.

(Emphasis added)

What is the Post’s basis for telling its readers that Antifa, thugs who go around beating up people whose views they disagree with, is antifascist? It’s probably the fact that the Post also disagrees with the views of those whom these leftist thugs beat up.

It’s true that Antifa claims to be antifascist. But surely the Post, chock full of crack, truth-seeking journalists, isn’t taking Antifa’s word for it.

Donald Trump says he’s making America great again. The Post doesn’t parrot that claim. Why does it parrot the claim of hooded goons that they are antifascist? Again, it’s probably because the Post thinks Antifa, if not exactly on its side, is at least the enemy of its enemies.

It took four Post reporters — Peter Hermann, Peter Jamison, Hannah Natanson, and Clarence Williams — to crank out this pedestrian story, which runs only a little over two dozen paragraphs. Which of these ace reporters decided to buy Antifa’s marketing of itself as an antifascist organization? Maybe it was a collective decision. Or maybe they simply followed an editorial decision made by the Post’s brass.

Speaking of marketing, it’s shocking that a newspaper that markets itself through the slogan “democracy dies in darkness” applies a heroic description to a gang whose criminal behavior constitutes a head-on threat to free speech and, therefore, democracy.

Shocking, but not surprising, given that the newspaper in question is the Washington Post.

PRAGER PreRelease Screening NO SAFE SPACES at Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, Tuesday, July 9!!

SPECIAL SCREENING OF NO SAFE SPACES, JULY 9

by  John Hinderaker   at PowerLine:

If you live in or near the Twin Cities, you should think about attending a special pre-release screening of the Dennis Prager/Adam Carolla film No Safe Spaces next Tuesday, July 9. No Safe Spaces, which deals with the insanity on America’s college campuses, won’t be released until the Fall, but we have arranged for a special screening, sponsored by Center of the American Experiment. Details are here. The showing will be at the Parkway Theater in south Minneapolis, beginning at 7:00 p.m.

Here is a trailer for the film. In addition to Prager and Carolla, it features appearances by Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, Alan Dershowitz, Cornel West and Sheryl Attkisson:

By the way, you may notice that the trailer said the movie was coming out in Fall 2018. It was pushed back, I believe because so many outrages continued to take place on campuses that the producers kept adding more material.

As a special treat, the movie’s director, Justin Folk, will attend our July 9 screening and will answer questions about the filming of the movie. The venue is nice; the Parkway Theater is newly renovated and serves beer, wine and cocktails as well as Diet Coke and Sprite. Also, did I mention that admission is only $5?

You can sign up for the event here. I encourage you to do so, it is going to be a lot of fun.

DEMOCRAT ANTIFA GANGS AT WORK!

by  Byron York at Washington Examiner:

The toxicity of the resistance to President Trump has risen in recent days, with the nation’s most respected newspapers publishing rationalizations for denying Trump supporters public accommodation and for doxxing career federal employees, while a journalist found himself under physical attack from the so-called anti-fascist group Antifa, which has stepped up its violent activities since Trump’s election.

The justification for denying public accommodation came from the Washington Post in an op-ed by Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of a farm-to-table restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. Wilkinson became famous in June of last year, when she refused to serve White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders and and told Sanders and her family to leave the restaurant. Wilkinson’s staff then followed the Sanders group in protest as they tried to find another place to eat.

Wilkinson later told the press she ejected Sanders because the Trump administration is

“inhumane and unethical” and because the Red Hen “has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation.”

 

In her new article, Wilkinson discussed the case of The Aviary, a trendy bar in Chicago where a waitress recently spat on Eric Trump, the president’s son. Wilkinson wrote that the incident, along with her own decision to oust Sanders, shows that in the age of Trump “new rules apply” in public accommodations: Americans who work for the administration or support the president should stay away.

“If you’re directly complicit in spreading hate or perpetuating suffering, maybe you should consider dining at home,” Wilkinson wrote.

Wilkinson noted that “no one in the industry condones the physical assault of a patron,”but at the same time declared that Americans should understand that a “frustrated person” — for example, a restaurant employee — will “lash[] out at the representatives of an administration that has made its name trashing norms and breaking backs.” Americans should accept that such things will happen.

“If you’re an unsavory individual,” Wilkinson concluded, “we have no legal or moral obligation to do business with you.” Better to stay home than risk the spittle. (And of course, Wilkinson and her colleagues in the hospitality industry will decide who is “unsavory.”)

The apology for doxxing came from the New York Times in a piece by Kate Cronin-Furman, an assistant professor of human rights at University College London. The article focused on the treatment of illegal immigrant children in detention centers near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Cronin-Furman discussed the detentions, as well as actions by employees of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in terms of the Holocaust and genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda. Those are, of course, contexts which most Americans would likely dismiss as preposterous and offensive but which Cronin-Furman and the New York Times apparently take seriously. Her idea is that opponents of the administration should publicly identify and shame low- and mid-level Customs and Border Protection employees who care for migrant children.

Such workers would be dismayed at being publicly shamed because they are “sensitive to social pressure,” Cronin-Furman wrote, “which has been shown to have played a huge role in atrocity commission and desistance in the Holocaust, Rwanda, and elsewhere. The campaign to stop the abuses at the border should exploit this sensitivity.”

“This is not an argument for doxxing,” Cronin-Furman continued. “It’s about exposure of their participation in atrocities to audiences whose opinion they care about. The knowledge, for instance, that when you go to church on Sunday, your entire congregation will have seen you on TV ripping a child out of her father’s arms is a serious social cost to bear. The desire to avoid this kind of social shame may be enough to persuade some agents to quit and may hinder the recruitment of replacements. For those who won’t (or can’t) quit, it may induce them to treat the vulnerable individuals under their control more humanely. In Denmark during World War II, for instance, strong social pressure, including from churches, contributed to the refusal of the country to comply with Nazi orders to deport its Jewish citizens.”

Needless to say, that was a clear argument for doxxing.

Finally, there was Antifa’s recent attack on Andy Ngo, a freelance journalist often associated with the pro-free thought cultural publication Quillette. At a demonstration in Portland, at which Trump was a focus of dispute, Antifa fighters beat up and milkshaked Ngo, apparently because he was there and he was not on their side.

The president is not always at the center of such demonstrations, but Antifa has become an angry and violent fringe force in the Resistance. It has played an ugly role in a number of events, most notably Charlottesville, in which feelings about Trump have played a role.

Shunning, shaming, doxxing, attacking. As the 2020 campaign reaches full speed, would it surprise anyone to see all of it increase? And all from people who congratulate themselves for standing against hate. Perhaps our politics will cool down at some point in the future. But not now.

The Fanatic Muslim Brotherhood!

INSIDE THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

by Scott Johnson   at  PowerLine:

Anyone seeking to understand the Muslim Brotherhood would benefit from exposure to Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower and Andrew McCarthy’s The Grand Jihad. Andy, incidentally, devotes two chapters to Minnesota. We’ve got the Brotherhood and we’ve got it bad.

I believe each of these books to be invaluable in its own way, but they require a commitment of time and effort. It wouldn’t be quite correct to say that the time spent is not inherently pleasurable, but the books aren’t fun. On the contrary.

Now comes Ami Horowitz to take us “Inside the Muslim Brotherhood” in the 18-minute video below. In this excellent video, Ami investigates the origins and the motivations of the Brotherhood. From the Middle East to Europe to the USA, Ami explores the organization’s radical agenda.

Quotable quote: “‘How closely is the Brotherhood working with the leftist and liberal organizations?’ Horowitz asks [American Brotherhood advocate Nidal Mohamed] Sakr. ‘They are my backers and they are my defenders in political circles,’ says Sakr.”

 

Inside the Muslim Brotherhood

OBERLIN: Where Feminist Fascists Run Amok!

WILL OBERLIN LEARN ITS LESSON?

by  Steven Hayward  at PowerLine:

Short answer: No, they won’t.

Longer answer: Check out the dean of students (and also assistant to the president for equity, diversity, and inclusion!) Meredith Raimondo, who was near the center of the Gibson’s Bakery case for collaborating with students to harass Gibson’s Bakery.

Raimondo came to the deanship from Oberlin’s department of “Comparative American Studies,” which, Oberlin’s website informs us, was “newly formed” around 2003. I’ll bet it was “newly formed.” That ought to be the first red flag. What is comparative American studies? I suspect at Oberlin it means comparing the United States to Nazi Germany and finding the U.S. coming out the worse. Here’s part of the description from the department’s website:

The department invites students to consider the relationship of different communities to both the nation-state and to each other, ranging from issues of settler colonialism and empire building to social justice movements. Courses investigate power and agency through analysis of intersecting structures of race, gender, class, sexuality, ability and citizenship.

Here’s a list of four “sample courses” from the department’s website:

Sorry—I should have warned readers that it was more of a stool sample of courses.

I tried to see if I could find any syllabi from Raimondo’s courses online, but had no luck. Her Oberlin bio merely states, “She has taught courses spanning the themes of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity studies, social justice, and HIV/AIDS.”

According to a 2016 report in The Tower, Raimondo appears to traffic in the anti-Semitism fashionable at places like Oberlin these days:

According to several online syllabi, Raimondo’s classes feature readings from academics including Joseph Massad, Lisa Duggan, Judith Butler, and Jasbir Puar. As Andrew Pessin indicated in The Algemeiner, all of these academics have previously been accused of espousing views that are intolerant of Israel and Jews. . .

The syllabus [note: this link is dead] for Raimondo’s 2013 seminar on “Transnational Sexualities” included a paper by Puar titled “Citation and Censorship: The Politics of Talking About the Sexual Politics of Israel.” Puar’s piece, which she presented at a German university in 2010, calls Israel a “not only racist, but also, apartheid state,” and features critiques of what she calls Israel’s practice of “pinkwashing,” its ostensible efforts to distract from “its repressive actions toward Palestine” by emphasizing its progressive policies towards LGBTQ individuals. The paper concludes with a reflection on “the ways in which accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ function in academic and activist contexts to suppress critiques of the implicit nationalism within Israeli sexual politics.”

But wait! There’s more!

As co-chairwoman of a task force charged with revamping Oberlin’s Sexual Offense Resource Guide, Raimondo helped draft an extensive, non-mandatory policy in 2014 that called on faculty use trigger warnings in their lessons.

“Anything could be a trigger—a smell, song, scene, phrase, place, person, and so on,” the guide read. “Triggers are not only relevant to sexual misconduct, but also to anything that might cause trauma. Be aware of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism and other issues of privilege and oppression.” It also instructed professors to “Remove triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals.”

As long as this kind of ideological pedagogy permeates the Oberlin curriculum, they won’t learn a thing. Make them pay every penny of the punitive damages. Then set up a table selling donuts just off campus.

UPDATE: One of our favorite Saturday TWiP meme suppliers sends this.

Islamist Fascists at CAIR Trouble-Making!

CAIR ‘Demands’ US Army War College Cancel My Lecture on Islamic History

by Raymond Ibrahim  at  American Thinker:

.

The “unindicted co-conspirator” Council on American-Muslim Relations (“CAIR”) and its Islamist allies are “outraged” because the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. has invited me to give a lecture on my recent book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.

On May 28, CAIR’s Pennsylvania leadership — namely, Jacob Bender, Timothy Welbeck, Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu — sent a letter to USAWC commandant Gen. John Kem and provost Dr. James Breckenridge urging them to revoke “the decision of the US Army War College to invite Mr. Raymond Ibrahim to deliver the prestigious 50th Annual Lecture Series of the US Army War College.”

The reason CAIR cites to disinvite me is that “Raymond Ibrahim’s book …  advance[s] a simplistic, inaccurate and often prejudicial view of the long history of Muslim-West relations which we find deeply troubling.”

Much of this is covered in a Task Force report, which contains some responses from me, titled “Army War College under fire over historian’s upcoming lecture on ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and the West.”

As a reflection of the unprecedented (and ongoing) nature of this Islamist campaign against me, the Task Force notes (emphasis added), “The trend of disinviting speakers on controversial subjects has been on the rise at American universities in recent years, but this appears to be the first time that a speaker at U.S. military educational institution has been subject to such a campaign, according to a database maintained by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.”

CAIR has since issued other screeds, including a Press Release and a petition that present me as a “notorious Islamophobe,” and — despite my being of Egyptian descent — a “white nationalist,” who, if allowed to speak, will cause “white nationalism, Islamophobia, and violence” against Muslims in America to break out.

In another article, I may parse through these hysterical allegations to expose the arsenal of verbal duplicity and second-rate sophistry groups like CAIR rely on in order to keep inconvenient truths suppressed.

For now, however, consider this: although my book is 352 pages and covers nearly fourteen centuries, certain epochs in great detail, not once does CAIR highlight a certain passage or excerpt to support its claim that the book “is based on poor research.”

The reason for this discrepancy is simple: although long hidden, the history I present in Sword and Scimitar is ironclad, verifiable, and beyond well documented; with about a thousand endnotes, my book is heavily based on primary sources, many of which are Muslim and from eyewitnesses.  This history makes abundantly clear that Islamic terrorism and “extremism” are intrinsic to Islam, and have been from its first contact with Western civilization in the seventh century.  Think of the atrocities committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) but on a much larger scale — and for over a millennium — bombarding every corner of Europe, and even America before it could elect its first president.

Put differently, the history presented in Sword and Scimitar proves everything that groups like CAIR are committed to suppressing.

Incidentally, whereas none of the CAIR activists petitioning the War College have any credentials in history, here is what actual historians and scholars in the fields of Muslim-Western history say concerning the book (many more can be read here):

• “Raymond Ibrahim’s Sword and Scimitar is … first-rate military history and a product of solid scholarship and philological research.” ―Victor Davis Hanson, America’s leading military historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
• “[Sword and Scimitar is] a refreshingly honest account of Islamic expansion and Christian reaction that provides useful insights into today’s problems.  This is history as it should be done: allowing the past to inform and guide the present, rather than distorting the past to fit contemporary political ideologies.” ―Paul F. Crawford, professor of Crusades history, California University of Pennsylvania
• “Ibrahim tells his story with extensive citations of primary sources[.] … Moreover, his method reveals the religious, political, and material motivations of the leading Christian and Muslim actors in this enduring conflict of visions that seem so very different from many modern western secular sensibilities.” ―James E. Lindsay, professor of Middle East history, Colorado State University
• “An accessible and well-researched examination of extremely important but often neglected cultural phenomena and historical events that have impacted several civilizations up to the present day.” ―Darío Fernández-Morera, Professor of Spanish history, Northwestern University, and author of The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise
• “[An] eye-opening introduction to a millennium of warfare between the Muslim and Christian worlds before the modern age.” ―Thomas Madden, professor of Crusades history and award-winning author of Istanbul, Venice, and Concise History of the Crusades

I do, however, give CAIR some credit: unlike many anti-Islamists in the West, CAIR knows how important it is to control the historical narrative between Islam and the West — a narrative that for decades has largely been in the keeping of their allies, meaning anti-Western, pro-Islamic leftist academics.

Because this pseudohistory has long presented Islam as a peaceful and progressive force throughout history — certainly in comparison to the West — all talk concerning modern-day Islamic terror and extremism has revolved around questions such as “What went wrong?” and “Why do they hate us?”

Unbeknownst to most, these supposedly all important questions that became so popular after September 11, 2001 are rooted to history: if the Islamic world was a tolerant and advanced force for centuries, as generations of Americans have been led to believe, then surely, its modern-day descent into radicalism and terrorism must be based on other factors — hence the nonstop claims that economics; education; politics; grievances; “lack of jobs,” to quote the Obama White House; etc. are the real reason.

Such logic is admittedly sound — but only if one subscribes to its first premise, that Islamic history is largely peaceful and tolerant.

But for those who become acquainted with Islam’s true history vis-à-vis the West — a history of virtually nonstop jihad and mind-boggling atrocities that make ISIS appear tame — there is no “What went wrong?” or “Why do they hate us?” to explain — only an unwavering, continuous line of violence and enmity, one that went on hiatus during the colonial era.

This is documented fact.

Hence CAIR’S unprecedented attack—one described as “the first time that a speaker at U.S. military educational institution has been subject to such a campaign.”  It knows that the first and long unquestioned — but ultimately false — premise of all Muslim apologetics is historical in nature and is doing all it can to keep that premise alive.

Time will tell if the U.S. Army War College will cave in to the demands of CAIR — a Muslim Brotherhood organization whose unsavory, deceptive, and even terrorist ties are well documented — or not.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/cair_demands_us_army_war_college_cancel_my_lecture_on_islamic_history.html

Hillary’s Economics and Forthrightness the Fascist Way in Venezuela and California?

LIFE IN THE SOCIALIST PARADISE OF BERNIE SANDERS AND AOC

by John Hinderaker  at PowerLine:

Venezuela is the latest chapter in the long story of socialist crimes against humanity. Venezuela reminds us how long a country can circle the drain, destroyed by socialism but still hanging on by its fingernails. Reuters, a liberal news source, has the latest on Venezuela’s long goodbye, but never mentions the fact that it is socialism that destroyed what once was one of the world’s richest countries:

These days, its Caribbean shoreline flanked by forested hills receives a different type of visitor: people who walk 10 minutes from a nearby town carrying rice, plantains or bananas in hopes of exchanging them for the fishermen’s latest catch.

With bank notes made useless by hyperinflation, and no easy access to the debit card terminals widely used to conduct transactions in urban areas, residents of Patanemo rely mainly on barter.

It’s hard for those debit card terminals to keep up with 1,000,000+% inflation. At InstaPundit, Stephen Green comments: “If you think money is evil, try living on barter.”

From the peaks of the Andes to Venezuela’s sweltering southern savannahs, the collapse of basic services including power, telephone and internet has left many towns struggling to survive.

The subsistence economy stands in stark contrast to the oil boom years when abundance seeped into the most remote reaches of what was once Latin America’s richest nation.

Reuters offers no clue as to what went wrong in Venezuela, except for a vague reference to the end of the “oil boom years.” Actually, Venezuela was richest when oil was relatively cheap, as this graph of the price of crude oil since 1946 reflects:

Meanwhile, the price of crude oil has declined world-wide since the 2009 recession, but North Dakotans aren’t living in a barter economy.

In visits to three villages across Venezuela, Reuters reporters saw residents exchanging fish, coffee beans and hand-picked fruit for essentials to make ends meet in an economy that shrank 48% during the first five years of President Nicolas Maduro’s government, according to recent central bank figures.

Those “central bank figures” are way too optimistic. Venezuela’s economy has shrunk much more than 48%, as millions have fled starvation and crime to seek refuge in neighboring countries.

Residents rarely travel to nearby cities, due to a lack of public transportation, growing fuel shortages and the prohibitive cost of consumer goods.

In some regions, travel requires negotiating roads barricaded by residents looking to steal from travelers. At one such roadblock in eastern Venezuela, a Reuters witness saw a driver fire gunshots in the air to disperse a crowd.

This is the future that socialists like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and many other Democrats want for the United States. Why? Because under socialism the government holds all power, and they are part of the government.

Venezuela is suffering one of the worst economic collapses in modern history. Inflation has topped 1 million percent, according to figures released by the opposition-run congress. The United Nations says 4 million citizens have fled Venezuela, 3.3 million of them since 2015.

Maduro blames the situation on an “economic war” waged by his political adversaries as well as U.S. sanctions that have hobbled the oil industry and prevented his government from borrowing abroad.

Maduro’s claims are idiotic, but they are cited with a straight face by news organizations that refuse to acknowledge the truth about socialism. Socialism is the greatest catastrophe in the history of the human race; the Black Death holds down second place. But as long as power-mad Western elites see socialism as the path to domination, quiescent news organizations will continue to play along.

CNN’s Robert Mueller’s FBI Fascists Attack, Arrest, Release a Roger Stone

ROGER STONE’S ARREST: WHAT’S SCANDALOUS, AND WHAT ISN’T

by John Hinderaker  at PowerLine:

Let’s start with what isn’t scandalous: the charges against Roger Stone. Scott embedded Robert Mueller’s indictment here. Byron York has a good summary of the charges.

The salient point is that Mueller’s indictment of Stone confirms that the Trump campaign had nothing to do with the theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee or their publication by Wikileaks. The allegations against Stone all have to do with what happened after Wikileaks dumped the first batch of DNC emails. Stone tried–unsuccessfully–to get in touch with Julian Assange or someone else who could tell him whether Wikileaks had more emails, and if so, what they contained. As Byron points out, everyone in the political world, in the Summer of 2016, was trying to find out whether Wikileaks had more DNC emails, and if so, what they contained.

There is nothing wrong with what Stone did. Mueller charges, rather, that Stone lied to a Congressional committee about his actions. If that is true, Stone is in trouble. But the charges against him do not support the theory that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to invade the DNC’s email system. On the contrary, the Stone story is just more confirmation that the Trump campaign had nothing to do with it.

Now, for what is truly scandalous about Roger Stone’s arrest: the manner in which it was carried out. The arrest was preserved on video because someone–presumably either the FBI or Mueller’s team–tipped off CNN, and CNN had cameras stationed in front of Stone’s residence at 5:00 in the morning. The video shows a dozen heavily armed FBI agents carrying out what can fairly be described as a paramilitary operation against Stone’s home. Why? Was there some reason to think Stone was so dangerous that it required a pre-dawn raid by a dozen agents with AR-15s to take him into custody?

No such claim has been made, nor would it be plausible. The show that Mueller and the FBI put on for the cameras of their political ally, CNN, was a disgrace. Here it is:

A few years ago, I couldn’t have imagined saying this, but the FBI has proved to be corrupt and hopelessly politicized. It needs, at a minimum, a thorough housecleaning. It might even be necessary to put the FBI out of business and start over with a new federal investigative agency.

NOTE:  Sarah Sanders reviews CROOKED HILLARY’S ARREST SCHEDULE:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2019/01/25/sarah-sanders-so-hillary-will-be-arrested-now-right-n2540240