This is one giant reason why President Trump’s nomination for the Supreme Court seat vacated by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy matters: the innocence of children.
This week, in Great Britain, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, known as Ofsted, denounced Yesodey Hatorah, an Orthodox Jewish school for girls in London, stating that it was “inadequate.” Why?
Turkey’s elections last Sunday did not produce any surprise results. The vote saw President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reelected with an outright 52 percent majority, as expected.
Erdogan’s AKP Justice and Development Party retained control over the Turkish parliament (albeit in conjunction with the ultranationalist, anti-Kurdish MHP party).
The results will not change the trajectory that Erdogan launched Turkey upon some 15 years ago when he first rose to power. But what the election does mean is that the obvious trends in Turkey’s domestic and foreign policies will be reinforced and expanded in an unimpeded manner.
From the America’s perspective, all of these trends are uniformly negative. As a result, it is time for a serious reconsideration of U.S. strategic ties with its erstwhile, and increasingly antagonistic, fellow NATO member.
Sunday’s election served as an endorsement of the constitutional changes that Erdogan forced through the Turkish parliament last year. Those reforms, which transform Turkey into a presidential system and cancel the office of the prime minister, provide Erdogan with unfettered power to govern by fiat. He can pass law by decree, call for elections at any time, appoint anyone he likes to any position he wishes, and declare a state of emergency whenever he wants for however long he likes.
Under the circumstances, whether or not the AKP controls parliament or not has become far less important than it was before the constitutional amendments were passed. Under the reformed constitutional system, the parliament is powerless to check Erdogan’s power.
Erdogan’s emasculation of the parliament is the final stage of his seizure of absolute power. Over his 15 years in office, Erdogan has assumed control of the Turkish media; banking system; judiciary; civil serviceeducation system; major industries;, and, most recentlt, the military. There is literally no independent power source capable of challenging his will.
So the question for foreign governments is: What is Erdogan’s will?
Erdogan has made no attempt to hide his goals. He has already transformed Turkey. When he rose to power in 2003, Turkey was the secular republic republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the aftermath of the fall of the Ottoman empire at the end of World War I.
That secular republic no longer exists. Turkey is on the fast track to become an Islamist state.
Erdogan’s new Turkish Islamist state harbors active ambitions to reestablish the Ottoman empire. To that end, Erdogan, a vituperative antisemite, has become a major sponsor of Hamas, the Palestinian terror group and Muslim Brotherhood branch that controls the Gaza Strip.
During the Muslim Brotherhood’s year in power in Egypt, Erdogan cultivated close ties with then-president Muhammed Morsi.
For several years, Erdogan enabled the so-called “Islamic State terror group to use Turkey as its recruitment and logistical base. He also permitted Turkey to serve as Islamic State’s economic hub. Most of its oil sales were to Turkey. Arms and personnel en route to Syria travelled through Turkey.
As for illicit oil sales, Turkey served as a major purchaser of Iranian oil and gas in defiance of UN Security Council sanctions barring purchase of Iranian oil and gas exports.
Then there is Qatar. When last year the moderate Sunni regimes, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, cut off diplomatic relations with Doha and blockaded its borders, demanding that it shut down its often-radical Al Jazeera satellite network, end its alliance with Iran, and stop sponsoring Sunni jihadist groups (including Hamas, al Qaeda and Islamic State), Erdogan rushed to Qatar’s defense. Turkish forces deployed to Qatar to protect the regime. Erdogan expects that in return for his protection, Qatar will behave as a Turkish vassal state.
As Turkey has cultivated jihadists as allies, Erdogan has spurned Turkey’s traditional allies — Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
As for Europe, Erdogan has taken an active role in undermining European societies through migration. Ahead of last year’s Turkish vote to approve or reject his constitutional changes, Erdogan sent representatives to Turkish communities in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands to campaign among expatriates to vote for the amendments giving him absolute power. When the Europeans objected and Holland and Austria barred Turkish officials from entering their territory ahead of the poll, Erdogan condemned and threatened them. Ahead of Sunday’s vote, Germany, Holland, and Austria all banned Turkish politicians from campaigning in their territory. Erdogan against condemned them.
The mass migration of Syrians and others to Europe was largely a result of Erdogan’s will. He chose to push them into Europe. Since he did so, he has been effectively extorting European leaders, especially Germany, to finance his economy lest he open the floodgates of migration from the Middle East to Europe once again.
As for great power politics, under Erdogan, Turkey’s relations with the U.S. have become frosty. As he cultivates mass hatred of Jews in Turkey, so he has cultivated anti-Americanism. Television shows, bestselling books, and other cultural outlets are geared towards instilling deep-seated hatred for America among the Turks. And it is working.
When Erdogan indirectly accused the Obama administration — which went out of its way to embrace and support him – of sponsoring the failed coup of July 2016, Turkish public opinion was already primed to believe him. Since the coup — which was defeated by Erdogan’s shock troops — U.S.-Turkish relations have gone from bad to worse.
As he has cultivated hatred for America at home, Erdogan has gone to great lengths to cultivate closer ties to Russia. Russia has supported Turkey’s assaults on the Kurds in northern Syria. And Turkey has signed a deal to purchase Russia’s S-400 surface to air missile system. The latter deal lit every possible red light in Washington. As a NATO ally, Turkey is required to purchase systems that are interoperable with NATO platforms. The S-400 is not interoperable. Moreover, if Erdogan chooses to, once he receives his order of 100 F-35 combat fighters, he will be able to share the stealth technology with Russia and China and thus endanger the viability of the U.S.’s fourth-generation jetfighter.
Moreover, given his strategic ambitions, there is every reason to be concerned that Erdogan will deploy his F-35s against U.S. allies.
Cognizant of Erdogan’s anti-Americanism — which, among other things, is manifested in the imprisonment of American pastor Andrew Brunson on trumped up charges of involvement with the coup attempt — earlier this month the Senate overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill for 2019 that bars the Pentagon from carrying out its deal with Turkey to sell Erdogan’s regime the F-35s.
Last week, the U.S. officially transferred the first two aircraft to Turkey. To a certain extent, the plane delivery was more apparent than real. The planes were transferred from a base in Texas to a base in Arizona, where Turkish flight crews and ground operators are being trained to use them. The training could last for as long as the U.S. wishes. And until it is completed, the F-35s will not be transferred to Turkey.
But the fact that they were formally transferred the week before Erdogan was elected the all-powerful neo-Ottoman leader of Turkey makes clear that the U.S. government has either not come to terms with the reality of Erdogan’s Turkey, or that it has come to terms with reality, but hasn’t figured out how to deal with it.
Some defense experts believe that Erdogan is not seeking an alliance with Russia through the S-400 purchase. They argue that Erdogan’s motivation is political, not strategic. He wants good relations with Russia, they say, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to remain in NATO, or that he shouldn’t be viewed as a long-term ally.
The problem with this view is not that it is wrong. Maybe it’s wrong. Maybe it’s right.
But assuming that is true, it doesn’t outweigh two other facts. First, Erdogan is using the S-400 system purchase to extract concessions from the U.S. just as he is using the hostage Brunson as a means of cutting a deal with Washington on things he wants.
Presently, Turkey risks penalties for violating renewed U.S. sanctions against buying Iranian oil. Erdogan may try to trade Brunson or the S-400 for an end to sanctions talk.
Then there are the Kurds. Turkey is demanding that the U.S. abandon its Kurdish allies in Syria and transfer control over the Kurdish enclaves in eastern Syria — including the town of Manbij, where U.S. Special Forces operate jointly with the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces — to Turkish control. He could be trying to trade the S-400 for the Kurds.
These prospects would amount to little more than extortion. Why would the U.S. sell its top warplane to a regime that seizes U.S. hostages, busts UN sanctions, and demands that the U.S. abandon its closest allies in Syria?
The second problem with the lenient view of Erdogan’s relations with Russia is that it ignores the wider context in which Erdogan is acting. He cares much less about superpower rivalries, and even his future in NATO, than he does about rebuilding the Ottoman empire in the Middle East. And every action the U.S. takes to empower him, whether by betraying the Kurds to appease him, or by taking his suggested “compromise” deals over the S-400 purchase seriously, fuel his ambitions and his capacity to advance them.
Turkey’s Middle East goals, in and of themselves, are deeply hostile to U.S. interests. All of Erdogan’s plans and beliefs align him with jihadists against moderate regimes that are actively fighting jihadists.
While it is important to be deeply concerned about the S-400 purchase in and of itself, when it is understood as part and parcel of Erdogan’s regional ambitions, it becomes an even greater cause for alarm. Because even in the unlikely scenario that Erdogan cancels the deal, the basic trajectory of Turkish strategic policy will continue to be diametrically opposed to America’s most basic regional interest of fighting and defeating the forces of radical Islam. This will not change, because Erdogan himself is a radical Islamist who supports jihad.
Some senior Pentagon officials continue to hope that the Turkish military will save the day. But that is a false hope. The generals who would have checked Erdogan’s ambitions are all in jail or dead.
After Sunday’s elections, Erdogan is Turkey. His positions are Turkey’s positions. And Erdogan’s position is that he should be an Ottoman emperor at war with America’s allies and directing America’s enemies.
It would be a mistake to let him lead the charge with a hundred F-35s.
Democratic lawmakers announced legislation Thursday intended to make it harder for public-sector workers to opt out of paying union dues, a right granted to them Wednesday by the Supreme Court.
The legislation would strengthen labor contracts that require workers, including non-union ones, to continue making payments.
The court’s 5-4 ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said it violated public-sector workers’ First Amendment rights to require them to pay their workplace’s union regular fees — common requirement in union contracts, dubbed a “security clause” — unless the employee “affirmatively consents to pay.”
So, if the employee ever signed anything, even unknowingly, that approved a deduction, the union can cite that to argue that the worker cannot exercise his rights under Janus.
The legislation is authored by Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., and co-sponsored by 31 Senate and 19 House Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The text of the legislation was not available, but in a joint statement Thursday, the lawmakers said the legislation would require that all public employers “recognize the employees’ labor organization … and to commit any agreements to writing in a contract or memorandum of understanding.”
That would put public employers in the position of siding with the union in any case when there was a dispute over whether a worker could invoke his rights under Janus. The legislation is dubbed the “Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act.”[…]
“This bill would force all 50 states to give monopoly bargaining powers to Big Labor, in a gross violation of the rights of public employees and the rights of those states’ policymakers. Monopoly bargaining has been a failure in the private sector, and a disaster in the public sector, for every state that has implemented it,” said Greg Mourad, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee. “Now the national Democrats want to force it on the rest of the states as well. It’s an obvious payback to the union bosses who spend $2 billion every election cycle to help them get elected.”
On Thursday, the day after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he would retire, which could prompt the Court to reconsider the fate of Roe v. Wade, President Trump issued a letter to the National Right to Life Committee reiterating his pro-life stance while promising to protect the dignity of unborn children.
Bad news is rolling in for Peter Fonda. In the wake of his call to place President Donald Trump’s 12-year-old son "in a cage with pedophiles," the actor’s newest flick has taken a nosedive at the box office.
A new study released by the Pew Research Center shows that a majority of Americans believe it is likely that social media sites censor political views. A majority of both Democrats and Republicans believe social media sites censor political viewpoints.
According to the Pew study, 72 percent of Americans believe that it is likely social media sites “intentionally censor political viewpoints they find objectionable.” Of those who lean Republican, 85 percent of respondents claimed it is likely that social media sites censor objectionable political viewpoints, compared to 62 percent of Democrats.
Broken down further, 54 percent of Republicans said it is “very likely” that social media sites intentionally suppress political views and 32 percent said it is “somewhat likely” the tech companies crack down on objectionable political views. Of Democrats, 20 percent said it is “very likely” the social media sites intentionally censor objectionable political views, while 42 said it is “somewhat likely.” For all respondents, 35 percent said it is “very likely” social media sites censor objectionable views, while 37 percent said it is “somewhat likely.”
When it comes to which political views are likely censored, Democrats and Republicans disagree.
A majority of Republicans said they believe social media companies “support the views” of liberals over conservatives, with 64 percent of Republicans claiming that’s the case. For those identified as Democrats, 53 percent of respondents said the major tech firms support both sides equally. The poll found 43 percent of all respondents believe that tech companies support liberal views over conservative ones:
The survey of 4,594 respondents was conducted between May 29-June 11, 2018. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
A 21-year-old woman has been sentenced to jail time for lying about being raped on a college campus in Michigan.
Mary Zolkowski will serve 45 days behind bars and two years probation after pleading guilty to falsely reporting a rape in March.
The woman told her mother she had been raped in a parking lot at Delta College in February. Her mother subsequently called the campus to report the false incident and Zolkowski followed up by filing a formal report.
Democrats may be grief-stricken over the now vacant Supreme Court seat that President Trump will get his chance to fill and you can bet that like Maxine Waters, they will resort to calls for mob action.
But a funny thing appears to have happened on the way to that “blue wave” as the party has become more radicalized, stands for nothing but hate and identity politics and has abandoned searching for solutions to complex problems in a rational, unemotional and pragmatic way.
To sum it up, the entire party has gone just plain bat guano crazy and all indications are that they will be donkey punched come November as any remaining sane people begin to flee the party.
And to make matters worse, there is now a movement that has been started for people to #WalkAway from this looming trainwreck and all of its fascistic and bigoted tendencies as the party meltdown picks up speed.
WalkAway is the brainchild of a longtime liberal who came to the realization that there was nothing liberal about today’s hate mob that is only in name a political party. Brandon Straka who is a gay man from Nebraska became so fed up with the collective madness of the Democrats and started both a Facebook page as well as made a video that doesn’t mince words.
The video has 1,156,248 views on Facebook and over 61,000 views on YouTube. The #WalkAway Facebook page has over 20,000 likes and over 6,000 members.
Straka, a gay man from Nebraska, says that he is one of the liberals who melted down in November of 2016 after Trump was elected. “It’s funny now, but at the time it was completely tragic,” he told conservative podcaster David J. Harris in a recent interview. “I was like a heartbeat away from being that ‘Leave Britney alone!’ guy … crying hysterically,” he said. Straka told Harris that a string of emotional videos he made after the election are still up on his Facebook page. He said the reason he was so devastated was because he believed all of the media lies about Trump being a “racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe, sexual predator.”
He said his evolution away from the lies began when he saw a video that exposed the lie that Trump had made fun of a reporter’s disability.
“It’s a compilation of footage going back to like the nineties,” Straka told Harris. “It’s him doing that exact same voice, and that exact same gesture numerous times when he’s talking about numerous people in numerous situations,” he explained.
“The key common thread witj all of them is — it’s a voice and a gesture that he does when he’s making fun of someone who’s been caught in a lie, or someone who’s done something shady or… dishonest and they’ve gotten caught. It had nothing to do at all with this person’s physical disability. Nothing!” Straka exclaimed.
That revelation led to his realization that the media has gotten a lot of stories wrong about Trump — including his alleged claim that all Mexicans are rapists and his alleged sexual abuse of women.
“Light bulb isn’t even the word,” he said. “It’s like the sun came up.”
The #WalkAway Campaign is a true grassroots movement. It is a video campaign movement, dedicated to sharing the stories of people who can no longer accept the current ideology of liberalism and what the Democratic Party has become. Some left long ago. Many of us have recently been “red-pilled”. Some here have wanted to leave for some time, but have feared the consequences they might suffer from friends or family if they walk away.
This group is here to encourage and support those on the left to walk away from the divisive tenets by allowing people to share their stories, or watch the video testimonies and read the posts of others who have walked away.
But this campaign also serves another very important purpose. For far too long, the left has controlled the narrative in this country in news and media while the “silent majority” on the right have done what they always do- remained silent. The left has been allowed for so long to reinforce the narrative that everybody on the right is a bigot, a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, etc. But the left has become so extreme, it’s now time to fight back. I want people on the right to use their voices and tell the world the truth about who they are. Please make a video telling everyone what it means to be a conservative in America. What your values really are. Tell minorities on the left who have been told their whole lives that they are not welcome on the right because of the bigotry and hatred of the people on the right that they are welcome. That there is a seat at the table on the right for everybody.
This is a movement of patriots of all walks of life- men, women, black, brown, white, straight, LGBT, religious, un-religious, who share something very important in common… we are Americans. And we want our country back.
Please enjoy the video testimonials and posts, and please leave one of your own!
It’s catching on too as it turns out that blacks aren’t the only mind slaves that the Democrats want to keep on the plantation.
Here’s a sample of some of the early reactions on Twitter and it ain’t looking good for Pelosi’s rabid rat pack.
I was always the most liberal out of all my friends and family… Always arguing for progressive policies. But with every political win the left got, they were never happy… It was never enough. For them, extremes became normal. That’s when I knew it was time to #walkaway
I was a Democratic activist for 15 years, but the 2016 election opened my eyes. I don’t recognize the party anymore. It is corrupt and hostile to independent thinkers; its leaders are divisive and hypocritical. It advances no ideas or serious policy, just hostility. #WalkAway
I was a loyal Bernie supporter and watched how the Democrats forced him to bend the knee to Hillary. I hated Trump from the beginning but seen how his policies have made this great nation prosper, I am no longer blinded by hatred. I encourage all Democrats to #WalkAway
When I realized that the left was trying to convince me that all my non-left family members were hateful, racist, sexist xenophobic bigots, I had to #WalkAway
I was a lifelong liberal Democrat. In 2012, I had a home invasion and was raped. Every one of my friends was a radical leftist – who told me to shut up because women have it worse, and tried to make me submit to the victimhood I reject. This opened my eyes to the left. #WalkAway
I chose to #WalkAway this year when Dems declined trump’s offer 4 a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients like myself in exchange for border safety. The best thing Dems ever did 4 me is demand $1k+ every 2 years 4 a paper that said I was protected from possible deportation.
I #walkaway when I realizd the Dems became the party of: Sexual Hedonism, Raising kids "gender-less," Removing masculinity, Anti-Family, Pro-Socialism, Anti-God, Anti-Personal Responsibilty.. Um, any wonder why our country AND relationshps are in such disaray?! Thats why Im #MAGA
— DeAnna Lorraine?? (@DeannaLorraine7) June 28, 2018
#WalkAway from THIS:
Better yet, RUN!
#walkaway is only the beginning. T-minus 7 weeks until we unveil the project that will put the evils of the Democratic Party to bed, once and for all. #NotYourVictim
On Thursday, former president Barack Obama offered his usual narcissistic perspective, this time as to why the Democrats got pounded in the 2016 election: “People were so focused on me.”
