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"His voice is amazing. He’s got a four-octave range." The post Huey Lewis on the best singer “you’ve never heard” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Congress last week voted almost unanimously not to admit any Hamas member into the United States. In a badly divided country‚ the vote harkened back to the declaration of war on Japan the day after Pearl Harbor‚ in which there was but one dissenting vote in both the House and Senate. (One can only wish that the negative votes end the political careers of Mesdames Tlaib and Bush as did the dissent of the much more principled and much more courageous Jeannette Rankin.) This is a firm indicator that in the minds of America as a whole‚ Hamas and the Axis powers are about as clearly evil as political forces can get. With Nazis‚ one does not compromise. Nothing short of complete victory can ever be enough. When America entered World War II with near unanimity‚ its narrative became united. Only months before‚ even supporters of Zionism‚ such as Senator Burton Wheeler‚ a progressive Democrat of Idaho‚ participated in an isolationist narrative‚ at one with Charles Lindbergh who was proclaiming that Hitler was “no Genghis Khan or Xerxes” whose rise spelled civilizational ruin and the coming of a new Dark Age. Even after Hitler had smashed the independence of Poland‚ Denmark‚ Norway‚ Holland‚ Belgium‚ and France‚ the “just another European war” narrative remained strong in America. Votes taken to rearm and to help Britain as she stood alone under the U-boat blockade and the Luftwaffe’s blitz passed with excruciatingly thin majorities. Pearl Harbor effectively ended the power of the Lindbergh narrative. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Complicit Media Wants Israel to Spare the Children) After the war‚ there was another thinning out of stories‚ a unification of the narratives that we told ourselves as Americans. In the light of the horrors of the Holocaust‚ there was widespread revulsion against the ancient storyline that had given religious cover to antisemitism in the Christian world. One could see palpably where such narratives of cosmic blameworthiness led‚ how they had infected the churches in Germany and the rest of Europe. By contrast‚ there were the examples of a better story there to choose — Dietrich Bonhoeffer‚ for example‚ or Pius XI in finally choosing to resist Nazism after first accommodating it. Later‚ John XXIII advocated for a courageous reconciliation‚ and this became manifest in Nostra Aetate and in the person of John Paul II‚ who had lived through both the Nazi and Communist horrors in Poland‚ and rejected their narratives of power and hate. What repels Americans is that the most basic story of our lives‚ the one that addresses the great questions of “Who are we?” and “What are we doing here?‚” the questions that concern the Book of Books that has been the great foundation of the West for centuries — that that basic story should be harnessed to hate. For when it is hate that defines the fundamental meaning of our lives to ourselves‚ then hate will be powered from the depths of our being. And such hate bursts through every boundary. It results in the Nazi death factories. It results in the orgy of murder‚ torture‚ and sadistic violence engaged in with such relish and delight by Hamas and its hundreds of civilian tag-along murderers and rapists on October 7. The vote of Congress ought to give the Bidenauts some pause as they try to implement their policy of forced even-handedness. They are caught in a narrative that Americans as a whole are done with‚ a story that is repulsive and disgusting‚ that can lead only to the destruction of that which is best in the Middle East for both Jew and Arab‚ and giving a second chance at victory to the people who have shown near-unanimous certification that they belong in the ranks of the worst humankind has ever produced. (READ MORE: First‚ De-Nazify Gaza) It is Barak Obama who tried to pioneer a radical revision of the shared American story. His narrative seemed smooth on the surface‚ and promising redemption in a way for which all good people yearn. Yet the more it was told and the more it was empowered‚ the more did it show itself to be unforgiving. It offered no escape from the totalitarian category of race‚ which alone would determine who was to be empowered and followed. His story thrives on the destruction of all other stories. Its claim of inclusiveness is a sham — it eradicates every other narrative except its own narrative of power. Instead of seeing our proclivity to sin as something from which we can be redeemed through love of neighbor and love of God‚ it proclaims us as hopelessly irredeemably unworthy and our morality entirely corrupt. It was in furtherance of this narrative that Obama acted and continues to act through his many proxies to destroy the natural and centuries-old connection that America has felt to Israel‚ the people and the land‚ seeing its own self and its own land in the great story of the Bible. From Washington to Truman to Trump‚ with many others in between‚ America has given religious freedom to Jews and all others; it has championed the cause of the Jews to return to their ancestral home and to establish a working constitutional republic in heart of a sea of tyranny; and it has championed the idea of meritocracy that gives everyone a chance to succeed by removing irrelevant impediments to excellence. We have tried our Obamaism. Our great story has taught us to be self-reflective‚ to take for granted that we always have some bias that can only be overcome by cherishing criticism and trying to learn its lessons. Perhaps we really were too supportive of Israel. Perhaps more concessions are all that is needed to end the violence and the bloodshed and establish peace and prosperity throughout the region. We’ve tried it. We allowed Obama to help the UN declare that the Jewish holy sites from Biblical times are not really Jewish and that the Jewish presence in their eternal capital of Jerusalem is illegal. We considered that maybe the best thing really might be to put back a wall and barbed wire and redivide Jerusalem‚ restoring the good old days when no Jews were able to pray at their religion’s most sacred sites or live where they had lived for unbroken centuries in the Jewish Quarter from which they had been expelled to the last person at gun point by the Arab Legion in the War of Independence in 1948 (that is one case of what real apartheid looks like). We by and large weren’t enthusiastic‚ but our own story demanded we give this kind of thought a try. (READ MORE: Jordan Peterson Reclaims Religious Beliefs That Promote Freedom) But something has changed. October 7 was as clarifying of the story we Americans tell of who we are as was December 7 of 83 years ago. We saw the satanic atrocities of Hamas‚ who broke the cease-fire they now claim so much to want of their own volition. We saw the violence here in our own country of the children educated in the Obama story and the perpetrators of higher education pushing their lying equivocations before Congress. We see that the time for hypothetical considerations is past‚ that our country and the world hang by a thread. What the times call for is not endless abstractions that distract us from the power grab of obviously malevolent‚ narcissistic‚ manipulative‚ and sadistic forces‚ but resolution and action. We know our own story now and we know it is better than the Nazis’‚ Hamas’‚ or their defenders and apologists‚ whether in academia or the Administration‚ or in the puppeteer who has the real allegiance of those who‚ at least on paper‚ are accountable to the stumbling‚ bumbling‚ compromised president. With Nazis‚ one does not compromise. Nothing short of complete victory can ever be enough. And Americans knows that. They will find their way to let America’s current ruling class know it as well — unmistakably. The post The Story of Oct. 7 Is the Same as the Story of Dec. 7 appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

U.S. senators are grilling the director of the FBI over reportedly deleting documents related to the creation of the now-infamous anti-Catholic Richmond memo‚ and potentially lying under oath to Congress. In a letter to Christopher Wray dated Wednesday‚ a coalition of conservative senators wrote‚ “We recently also learned that the FBI permanently deleted critical records related to the memo‚ and one of the authors of the Richmond memo prepared a second‚ external report in coordination with headquarters that was intended to be circulated outside the Richmond office to the full FBI.” The letter continued‚ “This information further calls into question your sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on July 12‚ 2023‚ and the integrity of the FBI’s internal review.  The FBI must immediately provide a coherent and complete response to the Senate.” In order to repair its critically-damaged reputation‚ the letter says that the FBI needs transparency. In early 2023‚ a leaked memo from the FBI’s Richmond field office revealed that the agency had detailed plans to infiltrate and spy on Catholic parishes where the Tridentine Mass is celebrated. The memo was based‚ at least in part‚ on insight from the anti-Catholic magazines The Atlantic and Salon‚ as well as the radical left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)‚ which classifies “radical traditionalist Catholics” as a “hate group” on par with the Ku Klux Klan‚ Neo Nazis‚ and White Supremacist Skinheads. The memo explicitly warned that Catholics devoted to what the late Pope Benedict XVI designated the Extraordinary Form of the Mass were to be considered “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.” (READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: Strangers in a Strange Land: The Catholic Church and Immigration) Since then‚ Congress has been working diligently to hold the FBI accountable for these egregious and targeted religious liberty violations‚ but Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland have made the process more akin to pulling teeth than collecting testimony. Wray‚ for example‚ had initially told Congress that the memo was the product of the Richmond field office and the Richmond field office alone‚ but Congress later found evidence that the Richmond office had collaborated with other field offices to craft its document and that the document was available to the entire FBI via the agency’s database. Furthermore‚ in a congressional report‚ it was revealed that the FBI “relied on at least one undercover agent to develop its assessment” and “interviewed a priest and choir director affiliated with a Catholic church in Richmond‚ Virginia for the memorandum‚” contradicting both Wray’s and Garland’s insistence that Richmond had acted alone and did not implement its infiltration agenda. The FBI somehow managed to dodge providing documentary evidence to Congress by claiming that it was conducting its own internal review — which many conservative and Catholic legislators noted is distinctly different from a criminal investigation. In Wednesday’s letter‚ that “internal investigation” is labeled “an excuse not to provide records or respond to [Congress] members’ questions.” The letter notes that Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) “asked for copies of the correspondence between the intelligence analysts who drafted the Richmond memo and anyone of higher rank related to the report‚ an unredacted copy of the Domain Perspective memo‚ and a copy of all reports issued within FBI or DOJ within the past five years alleging a link between any primarily-religious or conservative association or entity and violent extremism.” The letter continues‚ “Now we know that information related to the Richmond memo wasn’t provided to Congress because the FBI deleted the records as soon as the incident became public.” The signatory senators called on the FBI to “provide an immediate explanation for its order to delete records related to this incident‚ which not only obstructs congressional oversight‚ but also means the FBI’s internal review itself did not have access to documents that may have provided critical information on the incident. The FBI must also explain why it withheld this information from the Senate‚ despite repeated requests for records” and Wray in particular to “provide a full explanation of your testimony that the Richmond memo was ‘a single product by a single field office.’” Additionally‚ Wednesday’s letter reveals that one of the analysts who crafted the Richmond memo was collaborating with the FBI’s counterterrorism unit to expand the memo and make it more widely available. “There are other significant problems with the FBI’s response to the Richmond memo as well‚” the letter continues. One of those problems was the review process for the memo‚ which meant that top FBI lawyers and Special Agents in Charge read‚ approved‚ signed off on‚ and promoted the document. “That a product this defective was reviewed by seven FBI employees and senior agents is evidence of a cultural problem at FBI that points well beyond a single report‚” the senators wrote‚ further demanding that the FBI scour its databases for similar “intelligence” products targeting American religious communities in order to expose and redress a culture of anti-Christianity burgeoning under the Biden administration. (READ MORE: Understanding Pope Francis’s Comments on Hell) The letter also offers a scathing critique of the FBI’s internal review process‚ noting that it abjectly failed to address the FBI’s reliance on SPLC bias as data and did not review the personnel files of the individuals involved in the memo’s genesis. “Without consulting the employees’ personnel files‚ it’s unclear how FBI determined that an admonishment was the appropriate discipline‚” the letter explained. “FBI also admitted that it deferred to the Richmond Field Office’s Human Resources office to review the personnel file of the Special Agent in Charge‚ the very supervisor they report to. This is a clear conflict‚ which FBI needs to remedy by tasking those outside the Richmond Field Office with this review.” The senators conclude that the FBI is facing a crisis of credibility‚ actively undermining its own authority and its reputation as the benchmark for law enforcement. In order to repair its critically-damaged reputation‚ the letter says that the FBI needs transparency and must submit itself to congressional oversight — an end which the agency has been thwarting and frustrating since even before Biden took office. (READ MORE: Archdiocese Challenges Child Abuse Victims Act) The letter was signed by senators Chuck Grassley‚ Lindsey Graham‚ James Lankford (R-Olka.)‚ James Risch (R-Idaho)‚ John Hoeven (R-N.D.)‚ Mike Lee (R-Utah)‚ Ted Cruz (R-Texas)‚ Deb Fischer (R-Neb.)‚ Todd Young (R-Ind.)‚ Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)‚ Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.)‚ Mike Braun (R-Ind.)‚ Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)‚ Rick Scott (R-Fla.)‚ Roger Marshall (R-Kans.)‚ and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.).   The post Discredited: Senators Question FBI on Anti-Catholic Richmond Memo appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — “Biden nominates union lawyer‚ Muslim American to U.S. appeals courts‚” read the Reuters headline in November when President Joe Biden tapped Nicole Berner and Adeel Mangi for federal judgeships. I lead with the headline because I don’t want to be accused of treating either would-be judge as a token. It’s Democrats who did that. I don’t know that he’s antisemitic‚ but he’s no defender of Israel. When Berner and Mangi appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in December‚ Democrats noted that Berner would be the first LGBTQ judge on the 4th Circuit (Maryland) and‚ if installed on the Third Circuit (New Jersey)‚ Mangi would become the first Muslim judge on any federal appeals court. (READ MORE from Debra Saunders: Biden White House Interns: Nobody Cares What You Think) Another first: This would be their first time on any bench. Mangi‚ the National Association of Police Organizations warned‚ “has not even presided over a parking ticket case — and now is nominated to the bench one step removed from the Supreme Court.” Ditto Berner. During a December hearing‚ GOP senators noted that Berner had asserted that the right-to-work movement is “deeply racist.” Now she wants confirmation votes from senators representing 27 right-to-work states‚ including Nevada. So she offered that she had been speaking as a labor lawyer and does not see individuals who support right-to-work laws today as racists. As for Mangi‚ Republicans grilled him about his role on the advisory board of Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security‚ Race‚ and Rights. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11‚ the center co-sponsored a round-table discussion that “challenges the exceptionalization of 9/11/2001; legitimization of ‘war on terror’ and other imperialist wars and interventions.'” Some might call the timing insensitive. Others saw antisemitism. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned against giving “a lifetime appointment” to someone who advised and donated to the Rutgers center. Mangi said he was unaware of the controversy until the hearing. He was on an advisory board. Mangi can boast an amazing personal journey from his boyhood in Pakistan‚ to his qualification as a barrister in the United Kingdom‚ to his Harvard Law degree‚ to his partnership with Patterson Belknap Webb &; Tyler. So it was surprising that when Sen. Tom Cotton‚ R-Ark.‚ asked Mangi if he considered Jews living in Israel to be “colonial settlers‚” Mangi replied‚ “the conflict in Israel raises issues of policy.” And: “I don’t feel qualified to opine on that because it’s not a region whose history I’ve studied or where I’m from.” (READ MORE: The Other New Hampshire Primary: No Debates‚ No Drama‚ No Biden) That’s a weak answer to a question Mangi must have been prepped to expect. I don’t know that he’s antisemitic‚ but he’s no defender of Israel. All eyes are on Sen. Jacky Rosen‚ D-Nev.‚ who is Jewish and up for reelection this year. Carrie Severino of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network told me she thinks it “outrageous” that an “extremist” linked to an antisemitic group “is being considered seriously.” Rosen‚ Severino added‚ “is going to have to think hard if she is going to support him.” I reached out to Rosen’s office. An aide responded‚ “Sen. Rosen is continuing to evaluate this nominee given that a floor vote has not yet been scheduled. That said‚ it is worth noting that leading nonpartisan organizations in the fight against antisemitism‚ like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League‚ have called out how Mangi has been treated and have rejected accusations against him of anti-Jewish motivations.” Sorry. Mangi could have said Jews in Israel aren’t colonial settlers. But he didn’t. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post In Judicial Nominee Adeel Mangi‚ GOP Sees Antisemitism‚ Dems See Diversity appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered‚ Disappointed‚ and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood By David Mamet (Simon &; Schuster‚ 256 pages‚ $28) A couple of years ago I raved about David Mamet’s delightful‚ cocksure collection of essays‚ Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch‚ in which the veteran playwright‚ screenwriter‚ and movie director celebrated America‚ defended Donald Trump‚ and registered his dissent from the latest varieties of political correctness. A longtime lockstep leftist who came out as something of a conservative in a 2008 article for the Village Voice‚ Mamet‚ in Recessional‚ took on current politics‚ most of the seven lively arts‚ and la comédie humaine in general‚ and had irreverent‚ entertaining things to say about everything he touched on.  In his view‚ “acting schools load the actor with analyses that clarify nothing” and Stanislavski’s books on the topic are “a bunch of drivel. Now he’s back with another chatty grab-bag of bracing commentary‚ although in Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered‚ Disappointed‚ and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood he’s restricted his topic‚ as the title suggests‚ to the movie business — the result being a book with an even higher fun quotient than its immediate predecessor. Consistently engaging and wonderfully rambling (with numerous long footnotes that could easily have been incorporated into the main text‚ but who cares?)‚ it made me laugh out loud five times even before the prologue was over.  (READ MORE from Bruce Bawer: The Whole Ugly Hustle of Globalism: Itxu Díaz’s I Will Not Eat Crickets) Now 76‚ Mamet started his career with off-Broadway hits like American Buffalo (1976) and moved on to write Broadway classics like Glengarry Glen Ross (1983). Inevitably‚ Tinseltown came calling. “I began my career in Hollywood at the top‚” he jokes in Everywhere an Oink Oink‚ calling his embrace by the Dream Factory “a demotion” after years of success on the Great White Way. His screenplays for the 1981 remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice and the 1982 Paul Newman courtroom drama The Verdict were followed by such triumphs as The Untouchables (1987)‚ Hoffa (1992)‚ Wag the Dog (1997)‚ and Hannibal (2001).  Mamet loves the theater. Hollywood? Not so much. He respects film crews and actors but despises producers and studio execs. Like others who’ve labored in both vineyards‚ he draws interesting distinctions between them — for example‚ theater is dialogue; cinema is plot. And he serves up a blizzard of opinions about pretty much every aspect of cinema. His top two movie actresses? You’d never guess: Frances Farmer (1913-70) and Jeanne Eagels (1890-1929). His favorite directors? Billy Wilder‚ Preston Sturges‚ Vittorio De Sica‚ Masaki Kobayashi‚ Yasujiro Ozu‚ Mario Monicelli‚ the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger‚ and Stanley Kubrick. He calls Sullivan’s Travels (1941)‚ written and directed by Sturges‚ “the greatest of American comedies” and Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon (1957) “the perfect Viennese bedroom farce.”  The best movie scene ever? Mamet picks a low-key exchange in the nuclear-war drama Fail Safe (1964) between U.S. president Henry Fonda — who’s about to have the most crucial telephone conversation in human history with the Soviet premier — and his Russian translator‚ Larry Hagman. Amazing choice: as it happens‚ that chilling little scene‚ featuring exactly two characters and set in a small‚ featureless‚ windowless room‚ has haunted me ever since I first saw it as a kid. And then there’s Mamet’s memory of the last time he cried (as far as he can remember): it was “at Random Harvest‚ starring Ronald Colman and Greer Garson. (Filmed 1942‚ tears 1970.)” Which also happens to be (by far) my own #1 weepie. You’d think a guy like Mamet would hate all agents (“if you’re hot‚” he sneers‚ “you don’t need an agent; and if you’re not‚ the agent doesn’t need you”)‚ but he’s full of surprises‚ and he names the legendary rep Sue Mengers (1932-2011) as‚ in his experience‚ “the most interesting person in Hollywood.”  Mamet doesn’t pull punches. In his view‚ “acting schools load the actor with analyses that clarify nothing” and Stanislavski’s books on the topic are “a bunch of drivel‚ leading not only to the self-absorption of James Dean but to the beatification of Brando.” He opines that F. Scott Fitzgerald “wasn’t fit to puke into the same toilet as Hemingway.” About two of the leading comics of their era‚ he writes: “Red Skelton was not funny. Neither was Jerry Lewis.” I’ll agree on Skelton‚ whose humor‚ on his weekly variety show‚ utterly baffled me as a kid. “The randy‚ drunk‚ doped‚ crazed-by-greed‚ and be-fantasized movie folk took to Communism then as today they ‘fight global warming.’”   There’s more. Mamet calls movie executives “Village Idiots” and says that they “have no place on the set. They have no idea what they’re looking at.” He denies that there’s any “correlation between audience testing and box office‚” and tells us about an unnamed top director — whom he obviously considers a fool — who read every idiotic comment from a test screening and had his picture re-edited on the basis thereof. “Few films‚” Mamet states‚ “are better than the first draft … A committee cannot improve a work of art.” And he mocks film credits that include long lists of producers: “Would we read a poem announcing a score of creators?”  Nor does he hesitate to open up about his own career gripes. There’s plenty of teeth-gnashing here about big names who’ve turned down purportedly boffo scripts of his in order to make some piece of crap. Indeed‚ he claims that no one on the Coast ever liked his scripts — aside from “five directors‚ the actors‚ and the audience” — and that he’s still “baffled by the inability of producers‚ studio executives‚ managers‚ and agents to read a script.” Although Mamet got screen credit for Hannibal (2001)‚ it was‚ he says‚ made from someone else’s script and he pronounces the picture — which I’ve watched with immense pleasure dozens of times — a “pile of shit.” Then there are the vignettes in which he pulls back the curtain on — how to put it? — a lack of self-awareness of a sort that seems endemic in Tinseltown. (READ MORE: All Hail Cate Blanchett) He recalls‚ for instance‚ a conversation with producer Scott Rudin and director Mike Nichols in which their complaint about his script for some never-made film was that he failed to punish the millionaire hero for his greed‚ a sin that Rudin and Nichols both took for granted given the hero’s immense wealth — this‚ mind you‚ from two uber-rich guys who‚ at the moment‚ were meeting in Nichols’s luxurious Fifth Avenue penthouse. Mamet also remembers producer Richard Zanuck chiding him for his (ultimately unused) script for the 1997 Lolita remake: “You made him seem like a pedophile.”  The best parts of Everywhere an Oink Oink are those in which Mamet‚ however funny and self-absorbed he’s being‚ is also making a serious point about the creation of art or the politics of art. He explains exactly how he solved third-act plot problems in a couple of scripts — fascinating stuff. (In this connection‚ he criticizes Hitchcock’s 1941 thriller Suspicion‚ the ending of which‚ as he quite rightly complains‚ just doesn’t work.) He points out that Golden Age Hollywood decision-makers didn’t worry about offending minorities by “casting a Swede as Charlie Chan or Paul Muni as Juarez or Mickey Rooney as a Japanese photographer in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Natalie Wood as a Puerto Rican in West Side Story‚” but worried rather “about offending the great American majority.” Those times‚ he notes with regret‚ are long over.  He asks an interesting question: two 1964 films‚ Sidney Lumet’s aforementioned Fail Safe and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove‚ were both “masterpieces” with “identical” stories; so how can it be that the former film is “horrifying” while the latter is “the funniest film ever made”? He ponders “the universality of Communist thought in Hollywood” back in the day‚ observing — correctly‚ of course — that it “was just fashion. The randy‚ drunk‚ doped‚ crazed-by-greed‚ and be-fantasized movie folk took to Communism then as today they ‘fight global warming.’” Terrific line. And he wittily suggests that the vain‚ vapid actors who use award ceremonies “to assert the superiority of their political views” are the natural descendants of John Wilkes Booth‚ who exploited the presence of Abraham Lincoln in that box at Ford’s Theater to make his own opinions very well known indeed. (READ MORE: Bradley Cooper Is Leonard Bernstein — And I Am Marie of Romania) And there’s much more where that came from. Yes‚ Mamet can be something of a grating egomaniac: “Was I arrogant in my fifty years in Show Biz?” he asks. “You bet. But only toward my inferiors.” But boy‚ in these times of lockstep showbiz leftism‚ is he a breath of fresh air.  The post Biting the (Left) Hand That Feeds Him appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Russia has been secretly backing a Catalan separatist movement which conducted an illegal referendum some years ago and is now key for maintaining Spain’s socialists in power‚ according to Spanish authorities investigating activities in Spain’s northeast region by Russian intelligence services seeking to destabilize Europe. Catalonia has long been a money laundering hub for Russian mafia figures connected with his regime. This week‚ a Spanish high court revealed connections between Russia and Catalan nationalist politicians as Spain’s parliament prepared to vote on an amnesty bill that would clear Catalonia’s exiled president Carles Puigdemont and other pro-independence leaders from various charges including terrorism. The seven representatives from Puigdemont’s Together for Catalonia party (JXCat) provide Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez with the slim voting majority that keeps him in power. The Russian connection could add “treason” to the charges facing Puigdemont‚ for which there is no amnesty‚ according to a Spanish judge investigating the case based on rules of the European Union. “By backing the independence process‚ Russia would first destabilize Spanish democracy and open a back door for infiltrating all the democracies of western Europe‚” said judge Joaquin Aguirre in an interview on German TV. (READ MORE from Martin Arostegui: Putin’s March to the Red Sea) Russia’s military intelligence service (GRU) conducted covert operations supporting Catalonia’s regional government‚ the Generalitat‚ when it declared independence in 2017 following a local referendum that led to violent clashes with Spanish national authorities who declared the vote unconstitutional. High level Russian intelligence agents whose movements in Catalonia’s capital‚ Barcelona‚ were traced by European security services‚ may have included general Denis Sergeev‚ chief of the GRU’s covert action unit 29155 specializing in black operations. A false passport on which Sergeev entered the UK to plan the poisoning of GRU defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter in 2018 was used to enter Barcelona on two occasions in the weeks prior to Catalonia’s independence bid‚ according to investigators. Several GRU colonels and majors were active in Catalonia‚ according to Spain’s internal security unit‚ the Guardia Civil‚ which tracked some of their contacts with independence activists. The Russian spies set up headquarters at a Barcelona apartment complex and may have also used facilities of a consulate opened by the Georgian pro-Russian breakaway republic of South Osetia (occupied militarily by Russia in 2008) days prior to the October 1 independence referendum. The Russians discussed laundering funds to finance Catalan separatists through crypto currency‚ offered arms and even 10‚000 troops to support a future independent republic‚ according to Spanish intelligence reports. At one point‚ police caught a Russian national driving a car registered in Belorus containing a backpack with Russian army standard M-75 hand grenades. The Russians orchestrated an elaborate cyber war to support Catalan separatists‚ using a troll farm located in the outskirts of St. Petersburg under the company name of Internet Research (IR) linked to Putin’s now deceased former associate Yevgeny Prigozhin. It’s believed to have formed part of his paramilitary Wagner group‚ which has conducted propaganda and disinformation campaigns to support rebellions and coups in eastern Europe and Africa. (READ MORE: Zelensky Responds to Putin’s Missile War) IR flooded social media with hundreds of thousands of robot accounts boosting the Catalan independence movement‚ exaggerating support for Puigdemont‚ and highlighting repression by Spain’s security services. The fake news often got aired on Russian state media such as RT and Sputnik which claimed‚ for example‚ that hundreds of Catalans had been wounded in fights with police during the referendum. Fact checks with local hospitals indicated that the number treated for injuries was in the single digits. Russian efforts to control the narrative went so far as to hack websites and email accounts of journalists opposing separation from Spain. Prominent Catalan journalist Eric Encinas‚ who publishes the digital magazine Mediterraneo‚ received recurrent POP3 Google notifications of “unusual detected activity” in his Hotmail and Gmail‚ traced to a location near St. Petersburg. “The Russians were serious about setting up an information environment for a possible intervention in support of a radically nationalist state in Catalonia‚” says Encinas. Russian agents have kept in touch with Puigdemont since his escape from Spain. His closest aide‚ Jose Maria Alay‚ has visited Moscow on several occasions. “An independent Catalonia will be a friend of Russia‚” said Puigdemont in an interview broadcast on Russian state television‚ which has closely covered his exile. A Lithuanian member of the European Parliament with known ties to the Kremlin has been highly involved with Catalan independence groups over recent years‚ participating in meetings of the separatist umbrella organizations Omnium Cultural‚ visiting leading activists in prison‚ and possibly meeting with a far left member of Sánchez’s newly formed cabinet. Putin’s support for Catalan nationalism had been developing for some time. Catalonia has long been a money laundering hub for Russian mafia figures connected with his regime‚ according to Spanish law enforcement officials. A Russian oligarch and crime boss who has been a close associate of Putin since the early days of his political career‚ Gennady Petrov‚ operated out of Catalonia where he financed radical parties which in 2013 tried to appoint the corrupt mayor of a Catalan resort town‚ who often traveled to Moscow‚ to the post of Generalitat security commissioner. The Guardia Civil exposed that mayor’s close connection with Petrov and broke up the scheme. Venezuela’s socialist regime has also hosted radical Catalan politicians‚ assigning one of its leading election technology experts and a military attaché to a recently enlarged consulate in Barcelona. But despite all the backing from Russia‚ its allies as well as Soros-funded groups‚ popular support for Catalan independence has been declining. Pro-independence parties polled less than 40 percent of the Catalan vote in last year’s elections. (READ MORE: Russia and Iran’s Deadly Terrorist Diplomacy) “Sánchez may be breathing new life into a dying movement by enhancing the stature of Puigdemont and the separatists by offering constitutionally questionable concessions that have outraged much of Spain‚” says Ramon Peralta‚ professor of international law at the Complutense University of Madrid. Despite Sánchez’s efforts to redefine terrorism in a custom made amnesty for the separatist leaders accused of heading the illegal referendum and violent 2019 disturbances‚ which culminated in attempts to sabotage Barcelona’s airport and other key facilities‚ JXCat voted against the amnesty bill on Wednesday because they deemed it insufficient to cover their alleged crimes. The European Union has come down hard on Hungary’s Viktor Orbán for his pro-Russian tilt on Ukraine‚ but so far it has said nothing about Sánchez’s effort to bend the law so that accomplices of Putin can keep his “progressive coalition” in power. The post Russian Support for Catalan Separatists Keeps Spain’s Socialists in Power appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Mary Rodee let her son Riley open a Facebook account so that he could purchase a snowmobile. It seemed innocent enough. That was‚ until a sexual predator used Facebook Messenger to access Riley through a group chat. Hours after the 15-year-old was blackmailed and coerced with inappropriate images‚ he committed suicide. The first line of defense when it comes to protecting kids from online exploitation by predators and from harmful social media posts is parents. Riley’s story may seem like an extreme example of child exploitation on social media — until you consider the fact that teenage depression and suicide rates are rising alongside social media use among kids. (READ MORE from Aubrey Gulick: A Girl Was Sexually Assaulted in the Metaverse. Does It Count?) It’s a mutually reinforcing problem. The more kids are depressed‚ the more likely they are to turn to their phones and social media; the more they scroll and message‚ the more depressed they tend to become. As a Wall Street Journal op-ed put it‚ social media is feeding the mental health epidemic among teenagers by driving them “into rabbit holes.” The crisis has gotten so bad that a recent Morning Consult poll found that nearly 80 percent of parents support legislation that would require their children to receive parental approval before they could download apps. As it turns out‚ 80 percent is a big enough number for both parties in Congress to take note. Social Media Hearing Was Just a Photo-Op On Wednesday‚ the Senate Judiciary Committee held a fiery hearing on “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.” It turned into a perfect opportunity for the politicians involved to denounce tech CEO’s — to “hold them accountable” — without actually doing anything about the problem at hand. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R—Tenn.) accused Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of running “the premiere sex trafficking site in this country” and of turning children into products. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D—Minn.) could hardly hold back tears as she described stories of children who had been exploited on social media platforms‚ and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R—S.C.) told the Big Tech CEOs gathered there that they have “blood on [their] hands.” (READ MORE: Confronting the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ Backward-Looking Bureaucracy Trap) At one point‚ Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) asked if Zuckerberg had apologized to the “families of victims” standing in the hearing room holding up pictures of their children who had died or had been negatively impacted by social media. Zuckerberg stammered‚ stood up‚ turned toward the audience‚ and did so. It was a great photo-op. Nobody Is Sure What To Do The Senate Judiciary Committee is correct in concluding that something has to be done. Nearly 95 percent of teenagers use social media‚ according to a recent report from the U.S. Surgeon General‚ which makes these platforms the perfect tool for predators trying to exploit children. In 2021‚ there were more than 29 million cases of child sexual exploitation reported to the National Center for Missing &; Exploited Children’s CyberTipline — and those are just the cases that are reported. What they haven’t addressed is what the best way to fix the problem is. One solution senators at Wednesday’s hearing repeatedly referred to includes rescinding or reforming Section 230 — the part of U.S. law that currently protects social media from being attacked for harmful or libelous content users post. Completely rescinding the law would likely bury every social media company in mountains of legal cases and utterly change the landscape of the internet. (There’s also a good argument to be made that rescinding the law could give social media companies yet another reason to censor free speech online — which they certainly don’t need.) Any proposal to significantly alter Section 230 really amounts to wishful thinking rather than practical policy making. (READ MORE from Aubrey Gulick: If You Could Talk to the Dead‚ Would You?) Another idea is to require app companies‚ like Google and Apple‚ to force kids to obtain parental consent to download apps like SnapChat‚ Facebook Messenger‚ or X. The problem is that those features already exist. Parents can opt-in to settings like Apple’s “Ask to Buy” feature easily‚ but that doesn’t mean that they do. The First Line of Defense  The heart of the issue is that parents are the ones handing their children smart phones‚ not Big Tech CEOs. The first line of defense when it comes to protecting kids from online exploitation by predators and from harmful social media posts is parents. To be sure‚ both parents and their kids face a lot of peer pressure to give the kids access to smart phones. Additionally‚ there is something to be said for being able to communicate with your child while they are attending school — although they don’t need an $800 smart phone to accomplish that. However‚ it is only fair to note that‚ even if a kid doesn’t have a smart phone‚ his friends likely do and he can still access or witness inappropriate content on their devices. Social media platforms should be the second line of defense when it comes to protecting kids. Meta‚ X‚ TikTok‚ Snapchat‚ and Discord should absolutely take responsibility for and work to prevent sexual predators on their platforms. Regulation encouraging them to do so could even be good. Unfortunately‚ protecting kids on social media is not as easy as yelling at Zuckerberg and his ilk‚ as fun as that might be. The post Social Media Is Bad for Children‚ so Congress Put on a Show appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.