Sunday morning roundup

Nikki Haley is exactly the kind of US ambassador to the UN this country should always have had:

Even though the United States does not recognize the Palestinian Authority as a state, the United Nations persists in treating it as such. Despite its status as a “non-member observer,” the Secretary General of the UN selected a former Palestinian Authority “prime minister,” Salam Fayyad, to actually lead a UN diplomatic mission to Libya. There is, of course, a certain elegance for letting a crypto-terrorist from one Third World Islamic sh**-hole failed state lead a diplomatic mission to another hird World Islamic sh**-hole failed state that is up to its eyeballs in terrorists, but, even so, there are enough Third World Islamic sh**-hole failed states that are members of the UN that they could easily find a person from an actual state.

Like so much that is done by the UN, its purpose was largely to stick an finger in the eye of Israel.

With a new administration in office, though, decisions like these may become a thing of the past:

The United States on Friday blocked the appointment of the former Palestinian prime minister to lead the U.N. political mission in Libya, saying it was acting to support its ally Israel.
…
“For too long the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel,” Haley said.
…
“This is the beginning of a new era at the U.N., an era where the U.S. stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said of the U.S. decision to block Fayyad’s appointment. “The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the U.N. in particular.”

The new U.S. ambassador made clear that “going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies.”

If this is a real possibility and not just wishful thinking from McClatchy, it will be perhaps the worst item on the bad-move side of the ledger. Squirrel-Hair's not really thinking about including high-speed rail in his infrastructure package is he?


North Korea conducts its first ballistic-missile test of the year. (24 last year.)


It seems that National Security Director Michael Flynn has become a lightning rod for the emerging camps within Team Trump that are at odds with each other. Will he have to go?

A report from the Center for Immigration Studies tells a decidedly different story from that of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:

A review of information compiled by a Senate committee in 2016 reveals that 72 individuals from the seven countries covered in President Trump's vetting executive order have been convicted in terror cases since the 9/11 attacks. These facts stand in stark contrast to the assertions by the Ninth Circuit judges who have blocked the president's order on the basis that there is no evidence showing a risk to the United States in allowing aliens from these seven terror-associated countries to come in. 

In June 2016 the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, then chaired by new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, released a report on individuals convicted in terror cases since 9/11. Using open sources (because the Obama administration refused to provide government records), the report found that 380 out of 580 people convicted in terror cases since 9/11 were foreign-born. The report is no longer available on the Senate website, but a summary published by Fox News is available here. 

The Center has obtained a copy of the information compiled by the subcommittee. The information compiled includes names of offenders, dates of conviction, terror group affiliation, federal criminal charges, sentence imposed, state of residence, and immigration history. 

The Center has extracted information on 72 individuals named in the Senate report whose country of origin is one of the seven terror-associated countries included in the vetting executive order: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The Senate researchers were not able to obtain complete information on each convicted terrorist, so it is possible that more of the convicted terrorists are from these countries. 

The United States has admitted terrorists from all of the seven dangerous countries:

• Somalia: 20
• Yemen: 19
• Iraq: 19
• Syria: 7
• Iran: 4
• Libya: 2
• Sudan: 1
• Total: 72

Kevin Williamson at NRO offers the example of the classified ads in the New York Times to point up just how brittle post-American society is in 2017:

From the New York Times we learn of the emergence of the “no-Trump clause” in housing ads in our liberal (which is to say, illiberal) metropolitan areas. The idea is nothing new — I saw similar “No Republicans Need Apply” ads years ago when looking for apartments in Washington and New York — but the intensity seems to have been turned up a measure or two: In 2017, the hysteria knob goes up to eleven. Katie Rogers of the Times offers an amusingly deadpan report:

In one recent ad, a couple in the area who identified themselves as “open-minded” and liberal advertised a $500 room in their home: “If you’re racist, sexist, homophobic or a Trump supporter please don’t respond. We won’t get along.”

Was deliberate department policy to blame for Berkeley cops doing nothing during the anti-Milo riot? 

"The police were in this glass enclosed building looking out at all the mayhem, not intervening at all," said Katrina. She had gone to the event to see Milo with a group of friends who didn't realize it had been canceled until it was too late. Katrina said she and her group were trapped by the barriers when the ninja-clad "antifa" goons came marching in. She was split from her group after she was pepper-sprayed and she hit her head when she fell on the ground. Some volunteers helped her get to the glass building where she could wash her eyes out, but the police were inside "sheltering in place" and wouldn't let her in.

"The legal aid person who was trying to help me and I banged on the glass and were begging the police to let her and me in, so I could wash the pepper spray out of my eyes, and they wouldn't unlock the building," she said.

She collapsed on the ground and volunteers helped her wash her eyes out with bottled water.

Now, here is one for the good-move side of the ledger: the new administration is not going to defend the previous administration ministration's federal guidelines for how to deal with transgender students.