Wed/Med PM ~ thefrontpagecover

[Rudy Tirre]

TheFrontPageCover

~ Featuring ~

The 'Gay Gene' Guessing Game

Lewis Morris    

.

Democrats Continue To Turn

On The Constitution

By David Harsanyi

{ thefederalist.com } ~ The state isn’t here to give you everything you want—not even if what you want is extraordinarily popular with your fellow Americans... This is, no doubt, disorientating for voters who grew up believing they live in a “democracy.” In reality, our un-democratic constitutional bulwarks temper the vagaries of the majority. “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates,” James Madison quipped, “every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” The left will mock you for making this obvious observation. Yet many progressives don’t seem to understand the distinction between united states and a united state. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, for instance, recently took some heat from conservatives for claiming that the “weirdest thing about the electoral college is the fact that if it wasn’t specifically in the Constitution for the presidency, it would be unconstitutional.” Of course, there’s nothing “weird” about diffused democratic institutions. There is nothing weird about arguing for federalism. These should be the foundation for every policy debate. Every governing institution in the country, to some degree, is counter-majoritarian. Quite often, the counter-majoritarianism is the entire point. Hayes is under the impression that “one man, one vote” means every ballot needs to be plugged into a direct democracy, which is absurd. Hayes doubled down on “democracy” by arguing that “conservatism is a movement deeply paranoid and pessimistic about its own appeal, increasingly retreating behind counter-majoritarian institutions: the senate, the courts, the electoral college” and that it was “*deeply* revealing that the entire conservative movement gets #triggered if you say the simple truth about the electoral college.” It’s not a simple truth, is it? For one thing, progressives increasingly view voting as the most sacred and determinative act of a citizen and see any counter-majoritarianism as unnatural and unfair...  https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/03/democrats-continue-turn-constitution/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=1e77bd67cd-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-1e77bd67cd-83771801 

. 

The Islamic Republic lashes out

By Clifford D. May  

{ washingtontimes.com } ~ It’s been 40 years since I’ve been to Iran. I’d love to return. At present, that seems inadvisable... I went there as a reporter, in the early months of 1979, a time of revolution, a time when many Iranians, perhaps most, hoped they might soon be freer than they had been under the shah and more prosperous, too. My media colleagues regarded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, as an avatar of authentic Third World spirituality and social justice. The U.S. ambassador in Tehran, William Sullivan, compared him to Mahatma Gandhi. I left Iran before summer, and by fall it was clear that Iran’s new rulers were achieving little — unless forcing women to cover up can be considered an achievement. In an attempt to re-ignite revolutionary fervor, militant young followers of Ayatollah Khomeini seized the American embassy and took American diplomats hostage. Though a more blatant violation of international law is hard to imagine, an effective response was not forthcoming. Ayatollah Khomeini famously concluded: “America cannot do a damn thing against us.” Confident of that assessment, the Islamic Republic went on to become the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, eventually providing “nearly a billion dollars a year” to favored asymmetric combatants, according to the State Department. The regime has been behind terrorist attacks and assassination plots in the Middle East, Europe, Latin America and the United States. At the same time, it’s been building an empire. Hezbollah, essentially its foreign legion, has become the dominant military and political force in Lebanon, even as it works hand-in-glove with international drug cartels...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/3/islamic-republic-lashes-out/  

.

Lesson for Democrats: ‘Soft Power’ 

Relies on U.S. Military

By Hal Brands  

{ bloomberg.com } ~ President Donald Trump has a talent for latching onto bad ideas that elicit opposing bad ideas from his critics... For a recent example, look no further than the debate about the relationship between American military power and American diplomacy. Since day one, the Trump administration has been disdainful of diplomacy and other tools of “soft power.” In 2017, the administration unveiled what Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, called a “hard power” budget — one that increased military spending but proposed crippling cuts to the State Department and the foreign-aid budget. Republicans on Capitol Hill made clear that such severe cuts were a non-starter, and in 2018 Congress funded a key initiative — the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation — to compete with Chinese geo-economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. But the administration has continued trying to take billions of dollars out of the foreign-affairs and foreign-aid budgets, most recently  calling for a $4.3 billion cut in State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development funding.  Meanwhile, the mix of hostility and indifference with which the White House has treated the foreign policy bureaucracy has depleted the human capital that U.S. diplomacy depends on, spurring an alarming brain drain from the State Department and other agencies. To top it off, the White House has waged a quiet war against the World Trade Organization and other international organizations through which the U.S. has long projected its influence. This transparently counterproductive approach to policy explains why even some of Trump’s Republican allies have opposed his proposed cuts. There is no effective strategy for dealing with China, Russia, Iran or any other rival power that does not feature a well-funded diplomatic and development apparatus that can help the U.S. compete for geopolitical and geo-economic sway...

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-03/democrats-should-respect-military-as-well-as-diplomats  

.

Italy: Salvini Down but Not Out

by Soeren Kern

{ gatestoneinstitute.org } ~ Matteo Salvini, Italy's deputy premier and interior minister since 2018, has been shut out of the Italian government after his gambit to force snap elections to become prime minister backfired... As the de facto leader of Europe's anti-mass-migration movement, Salvini's departure from government may set back efforts to slow illegal immigration to the continent. Many analysts, however, believe that Salvini, who continues to lead his rivals in opinion polls, will be back in government soon and in an even stronger position than before. On August 8, after months of public feuding, Salvini declared  the governing coalition between his League party and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) unworkable. He  accused M5S of blocking the League's main policies and said that the only way forward was to hold fresh elections. The League and M5S, ahead of an inconclusive election in March 2018, had been political adversaries. Three months later, however, they formed an unlikely alliance. Their June 2018 coalition agreement, outlined in a 39-page action plan,  promised to crack down on illegal immigration and to deport up to 500,000 undocumented migrants. Since then, Salvini has accused M5S of failing to implement parts of the coalition agreement. Tensions came to a head on August 7, when, during a session in Parliament, M5S voted against a project supported by Salvini for a high-speed train link with France. "It is useless to go ahead with 'no's' and quarrels," Salvini wrote on his Facebook page. "Italians need certainty and a government that works, not a Mr. 'No.'" Salvini called for new elections to be held on October 13. In an effort to avoid early elections, which polls show that Salvini would win, M5S reached out to the rival center-left Democratic Party (PD), cutting Salvini's League party out of power. M5S and PD clinched a preliminary coalition agreement on August 28, and a day later Italian President Sergio Mattarella asked Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, an independent, to form a new coalition government. Although the League is Italy's most popular party, M5S and PD are the two largest forces in parliament...

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14817/italy-matteo-salvini  

.

Michigan Teachers Subjected 

to Bizarre Islamic Propaganda Training

by patriotnewsdaily.com ~ After filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the Novi Community School District in Michigan...  “We found that the teachers were subjected to two days of Islamic propaganda, where Islam was glorified, Christianity disparaged, and America bashed—all funded by Novi taxpayers,” explained Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Law Center. He noted that the school district had not sponsored teacher trainings on Christianity, Judaism, or other religions over the past five years, but solely on Islam. The “cultural competency” expert hired by the Novi Community Schools District in Michigan is Huda Essa of Culture Links LLC, a hijab-wearing woman of Arab descent. After examining numerous documents relating to Essa’s presentation including audio transcripts from her talk, the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) found that “information on Islam she provided to Novi teachers was riddled with falsehoods and errors of omission that were clearly meant to deceive. ”We recognize that Michigan has become a hotbed for Arab immigration thanks to the scumbag/liar-nObama administration’s “anything goes” refugee policies, resulting in terrorist cells, the rise of female genital mutilation, and extremely-questionable decisions in congressional races, but how is this okay? What kind of outrage would we see if these teachers were subjected to two days’ worth of a teacher telling them about the superiority of Christianity. ESPECIALLY if it were paired with the denigration of Islam? We’d never hear the end of it. “Under the banner of promoting diversity, inclusion and a multicultural approach to education, Essa sets about comparing Islam to Christianity, calling them ‘mostly similar.’ The one big difference, she claims, is that Islam is the world’s ‘only purely monotheistic religion,’” explained the TMLC. “Islam’s holy book, the Koran, came straight from Allah to the prophet Muhammad and, unlike the Jewish and Christian scriptures, has never been altered or changed, she told the Novi teachers. Significantly, the Koran commands Muslims to ‘Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.’” “Her message was clear: The Koran is superior to the Bible. But she did not address the fact that it calls for the extermination of Christian and Jews,” the TMLC concluded. If we’re going to keep our schools clear of religious teachings, then we need to keep our schools clear of ALL religious teachings. Most especially Islam, which has caused the West and the wider world entirely too much trouble over the last quarter-century and beyond. The last thing we need are teachers being propagandized into this religious nuttery before heading back to the classrooms.  Huda Essa needs to be deported.   http://patriotnewsdaily.com/michigan-teachers-subjected-to-bizarre-islamic-propaganda-training/   

. 

.

The 'Gay Gene' Guessing Game

Lewis Morris:  The findings of a recently released study on the origins of human sexual orientation, the largest of its kind ever conducted, is sure to reignite the debate over homosexuality and whether it is a controlled life choice or the result of an uncontrollable set of genetic circumstances.   

The study determined that genes do have an impact on a person’s sexual orientation, but that it is impossible to predict a person’s sexual behavior solely on their genome. Researchers concluded that different components of different genes in the human genome can contribute to determining a person’s sexuality, particularly in the presence of some external factors, but there is no single so-called “gay gene” that separates homosexuals from heterosexuals.

The study was conducted by researchers and geneticists at the Broad Institute at MIT, Harvard, the University of Queensland, and other institutions. It included surveys conducted among 400,000 UK and Swedish men and women in a British database and approximately 70,000 American customers of the genetic testing service 23andMe. All the subjects are of white European descent, and some 3% of the British sample and a surprising 19% of the American sample admitted to having sex at least once with a same-sex partner.

The sample audience for the study hardly indicates a strong representation of the general adult population, nor did the study spend any time on societal factors such as religion, income, family structure, and so forth. For the purposes of this study, researchers focused solely on genetic factors.

The study is sure to be attacked by the Rainbow Mafia for not quite supporting the party line that homosexuals are “born that way” and are therefore unable to reject that lifestyle. On the flip side, the report also indicates that homosexuality is too complicated to simply be a lifestyle choice.

How will the Left reconcile this study — which purports to lend more nuanced credence to the “born this way” argument — with the “I was born the wrong way” argument of so-called “transgendered” individuals?

On the one hand, leftists insist conversion therapy should be banned for homosexuals because of genetics. As one study author put it, “I hope that the science can be used to educate people a little bit more about how natural and normal same-sex behavior is. It’s written into our genes.” On the other hand, some individuals — including children— should undergo hormone treatment and even surgical alteration because their genetics got their biology wrong.

Some researchers in the study initially questioned the wisdom of going forward with the work. Geneticist Steven Reilly, who leads an LGBT group at the Broad Institute called Out@Broad, told The New York Times, “I deeply disagree about publishing this,” citing fears that the data could be misconstrued — by conservatives — for political purposes.

And the Left would never use homosexuality for political purposes…

Joe Vitti, another researcher at Broad who spoke to the Times, expressed similar close-minded sentiments. “As a queer person and a geneticist, I struggle to understand the motivations behind a genome-wide association study for non-heterosexual behavior. I have yet to see a compelling argument that the potential benefits of this study outweigh its potential harms.”

In the face of discovery, these “scientists” were willing to let their own political views interfere with their ability to conduct and share research for fear of how it might inform political opponents. They even entertained the idea of burying the study. Publicly they claimed fear, but it’s clear that the real motivation is that the study does not comport with their long-held social beliefs. It is the perfect example of what leftists frequently accuse conservatives of doing: using politics to distort reporting scientific fact.

The study was released to the public only after months of internal deliberations. The Times notes that the research team “used suggestions from [Broad] colleagues and outside L.G.B.T.Q. groups to clarify wording and highlight caveats.” Who knows how these so-called suggestions might have changed data as presented in the final report?

One finding of the study that could not be kept in the closet was the discovery of a genetic correlation between same-sex behavior and certain mental-health issues and traits like risky behavior and drug use. Hopefully this information, and the rest of the study, will be used to help people instead of being wielded as a cudgel by the Rainbow Mafia.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/65217?mailing_id=4507&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4507&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body