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April 2020

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Lawrence Haas: Israel Has Lots at Stake with Annexation

By on April 25th, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/494633-israel-has-lots-at-stake-with-annexation

With Israel’s new “unity” government now set, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a decision in the coming weeks with huge consequences for Israel’s relations with America and the wider world: whether to begin the process of annexing major parts of the West Bank.

That’s because an Israeli decision to pursue annexation would strike at the heart of a longstanding belief in major world capitals that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement establishing permanent borders between the two sides will result from direct negotiations, not unilateral action.

The decision will prove controversial enough in Jerusalem, much less overseas, because the two men who are to share power for the next three years – the Likud bloc’s Netanyahu and the Blue and White bloc’s Benny Gantz – don’t agree on the issue.

Netanyahu has long promised to annex West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, while Gantz has been inconsistent on the matter. He has long opposed unilateral action to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but he expressed support this year for the Jordan Valley’s annexation while conditioning it on international coordination – even though the international community largely opposes annexation of any kind.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, HISTORY Comments turned off

The Untold Story of the Bay of Pigs Freedom Fight—59 Years Ago This Week Humberto Fontova

By on April 25th, 2020

https://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2020/04/25/the-untold-story-of-the-bay-of-pigs-freedomfight59-years-ago-this-week-n2567572

“It’s a great honor and I’m humbled for this endorsement from these freedom fighters (Bay of Pigs Veterans Association)…You were fighting for the values of freedom and liberty that unite us all. (Candidate Donald Trump, receiving endorsement of Bay of Pigs veterans at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami, Florida, Oct. 25, 2016.) 

‘Shameless ELECTION YEAR PANDERING!’ snort liberals. Well:

“I really admire toughness and courage, and I will tell you that the people of this brigade [Brigada 2506] really have that…you were let down by our country.” (Donald Trump, addressing Bay of Pigs Veterans at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami, Florida, November 1999.

Since liberals (and their libertarian kissing-cousins) mostly parrot versions of the Castro/KGB-concocted script on the Bay of Pigs, let’s clarify a few items:

First off—No, it wasn’t a matter of “Big Bad Bully” Uncle Sam waking up on the wrong side of the bed and deciding to punish an innocuous free-healthcare provider and “nationalist” who booted “The Mob” from Cuba.

In fact: The U.S. gave Castro’s regime its official benediction (diplomatic recognition) more rapidly than it had recognized Batista’s in 1952, and quickly lavished it with $200 million in subsidies.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Economy Will Reopen Sooner Than You Think Edward Ziegler

By on April 25th, 2020

https://spectator.org/the-economy-will-reopen-sooner-than-you-think/

There will likely be a reopening of our economy on the very near horizon. And this reopening will be much sooner rather than later, with full acceleration within just a few months, perhaps even weeks. Here’s why. Problematic coronavirus testing issues may fast disappear as critical preconditions to reopening the economy. Testing issues won’t go away; they are simply likely to be left largely unresolved. In addition, new reports suggest that infections may be much, much more widespread than most had thought, which, in turn, means that there is a strong likelihood that we have much, much lower death rates from the coronavirus in all age groups. While most working people (not sheltered in place) may get the virus, the death rates for the entire population may turn out to be not much higher than the seasonal flu. For younger workers under the age of 60, mortality rates, which are already very low, will drop even lower.

Here’s the analysis supporting this reopening. According to a number of recent reports, the true infection fatality rate from the coronavirus for the entire population may well be much, much lower than had been previously thought, perhaps in the range of about 0.12 percent to 0.2 percent. At the high end in that range, if there’s an eventual infection rate of, say, 50 percent for the entire U.S. population, that’s a death toll of about 330,000 people. Most of these deaths, though, will likely to be of older Americans above 60 years in age. Older folks have much higher coronavirus mortality rates, perhaps 10 to 20 times higher than younger age groups. Actually, data now show that Americans over 55 may account for well more than 90 percent of all deaths from the virus. Looking at comparative data on death rates by age, we are not actually “all in this together,” though that’s a nice sentiment. Of course, this isn’t a big secret, and awareness of this reality grows as each day passes. It’s evident every day on our streets, in our parks, and at the widespread protests across the country for reopening the economy.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ascent To The Summit: Two Men Meet In The Name Of Peace And Declare Themselves Capable To Determine What Is Right And Just For The World by Tabitha Korol

By on April 25th, 2020

https://www.publishedreporter.com/2020/04/24/ascent-to-the-summit-two-men-meet-in-the-name-of-peace-declare-themselves-capable-what-is-right-and-just-for-the-entire-world/

Early February 2019 ushered in a momentous event, the joint signing of a covenant, “The Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, the head of Sunni Islam, and the Roman Pope Francis for a One World Religion. The historic ceremony was held in front of religious leaders of other faiths as a call for peace between nations, religions and races, although historically, Islamic peace is never achieved and it is they who continue to wage war. The declaration of peace, freedom, and women’s rights is indeed a beautiful document as described by Vatican News. Yet the imam is one man and the Islamic blood lust has maintained its presence in our world for 1400 years as a tribute to its founder, affecting even its own with intimidation and rules of torture, murder and suicide. Islam is the one religion that has been incompatible with the others and the Pope would do well to question whether Catholicism and the others would be willing to relinquish their own laws to accommodate the one that demands their elimination, in the quest for peace and a one-world religion.

Indonesian Muslim scholars also agreed to boost harmony and spirituality over the violence of the past by encouraging a school curriculum for “teaching Islamic history that contains the compassionate character of the prophet.” The suggestion is hardly comforting if it is the same prophet who beheaded the 600 to 800 Jewish men of Medina and enslaved the women and children, and whose descendants continue to engage in the same art of decapitation by the sword and bondage into the perpetual future.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Coronavirus: China Continues to Flood the World with Defective Medical Supplies by Soeren Kern

By on April 25th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15917/china-defective-medical-supplies

More than a dozen countries on four continents have recently disclosed problems with Chinese-made coronavirus tests and personal protective equipment. The problems range from face masks tainted with the coronavirus to medical garments contaminated with insects.

Chinese authorities have refused to take responsibility for the defective equipment and in many instances have cast blame on the countries that purchased the material. They have also called on nations of the world to stop “politicizing” the problem.

Slovakian Prime Minister Igor Matovič disclosed that more than a million coronavirus tests supplied by China for a cash payment of €15 million ($16 million) were inaccurate and unable to detect Covid-19. “We have a ton of tests and no use for them,” he said. “They should just be thrown straight into the Danube.”

U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler from Georgia accused China of holding up shipments of test kits: “Testing is core to opening our country back up. I’m concerned that China’s holding up test kits. They’re playing games with trade policy to prevent us, the United States, from getting the testing that we need.”

“[W]e should not lose sight of the foundational strategic challenge confronting the West in the emerging post-globalization era: We are in a long twilight competition with the Chinese communist regime, a struggle we cannot escape, whether we like it or not.” — Andrew Michta, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

Gatestone Institute recently reported that millions of pieces of medical equipment purchased from China by European governments to combat the coronavirus pandemic are defective and unusable.

Since that report, more than a dozen countries on four continents have disclosed problems with Chinese-made coronavirus tests and personal protective equipment. The problems range from face masks tainted with the coronavirus to medical garments contaminated with insects.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

AOC’s Baseless Accusation That the U.S. Is a ‘Brutal, Barbarian Society’ James D. Agresti

By on April 25th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/25/fact-check-aocs-baseless-accusation-that-the-u-s-is-a-brutal-barbarian-society/

According to democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the COVID-19 pandemic is proving that the United States “is a brutal, barbarian society for the vast majority of working-class Americans.” As evidence of this, she claims that “40% of us couldn’t even afford a $400 emergency” before this crisis, and COVID-19 “is more than a $400 emergency.”

However, her “40%–$400” statistic is false, and the facts that broadly inform this issue reveal that:

government social programs, which AOC seeks to enlarge, depress workers’ savings, causing the very outcomes that she decries.
the people of the U.S. lead the world in charity.
middle- and low-income Americans are more financially capable of handling COVID-19 than the bulk of people in most developed countries, including those who live in more socialistic nations that AOC says the U.S. should emulate.
AOC’s Allegations

In a recent video, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) declared: “This is supposed to be the richest society in the world, and I think what this crisis is showing us is that this is only a rich society for a very small amount of people, and it is a brutal, barbarian society for the vast majority of working-class Americans because 40% of us couldn’t even afford a $400 emergency before this thing started. This is more than a $400 emergency, and we’re really going to have to step up and completely change our approach to our public systems.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FBI Director Wray Behind Suppression of ‘Stunning’ Exculpatory Evidence in Flynn Case By Debra Heine

By on April 25th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/24/report-fbi-director-wray-behind-suppression-of-stunning-exculpatory-evidence-in-flynn-case/

The Federal Bureau of Investigations withheld “stunning” exculpatory evidence in the case of President Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn at the behest of FBI Director Christopher Wray, the Daily Caller reported Friday.

The Federalist meanwhile reported that FBI general counsel Dana Boente was behind the effort to block the release of the Brady Material.

According to the FBI official who spoke to The Federalist, FBI general counsel Dana Boente led the charge internally against DOJ’s disclosure of the new materials. Boente, who briefly served as acting Attorney General after Trump became president, personally signed off on one of the federal spy warrants against former Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page. The new documents, which were filed under a protective order by DOJ on Friday, will reflect poorly on the FBI, the official told The Federalist. It is not clear when, or even if, those documents will be unsealed and made available to the public for review.

A source with “direct knowledge of the situation” told the Daily Caller that Boente was acting in coordination with the Trump-appointed Wray.

Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, announced on Twitter Friday that she filed the new court documents containing exculpatory evidence.

“This afternoon, the government produced to Mr. Flynn stunning Brady evidence that proves Mr. Flynn’s allegations of having been deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents at the top of the FBI,” Powell wrote in a Supplement to Flynn’s Motion to Dismiss. “The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution—knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez still championing the ‘unwilling to work’ By Monica Showalter

By on April 25th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/that_hill_shell_die_on_alexandria_ocasiocortez_still_championing_the_unwilling_to_work.html

“The socialist ‘it girl’ lays another egg, telling unemployment-wracked New Yorkers to go on a ‘job strike.'”

Talk about dimwit.

At a time when millions of Americans are demanding to be allowed to return to work, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for a “work strike.”

According to PJMedia’s Tyler O’Neill:

“When we talk about this idea of reopening society you know, only in America does the president — when the president tweets about liberation — does he mean ‘go back to work.’ When we have this discussion about going back or reopening, I think a lot of people should just say no — we’re not going back to that,” AOC told Anand Giridharadas in the first episode of his upcoming Vice show.

“We’re not going back to working 70-hour weeks just so that we could put food on the table and not even feel any sort of semblance of security in our lives,” she argued.
Which ought to go over real well with hungry workers wondering how the rent’s going to get paid. They know it’s bad for them.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Democrats to Replace Biden at Convention Over Tara Reade Sexual Assault Allegations? By Matt Margolis

By on April 25th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/election/democrats-to-replace-biden-at-convention-over-tara-reade-sexual-assault-allegations/

While the mainstream media has mostly kept a lid on this story, the sexual assault allegations by Tara Reade against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden aren’t going away soon. As PJM’s Rick Moran reported earlier this week, the D.C. police are treating the allegations as an “active and ongoing” investigation. Many liberals are turning a blind eye to the story, but there are some who have a vested interest in keeping this story alive and front and center: Bernie Bros.

In fact, Briahna Joy Gray, Bernie Sanders’ former campaign press secretary, who has been a vocal critic of Biden, suggested in an interview with The Atlantic that the allegations might just thwart Biden’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention.

Gray told Emma Green that the Democratic primary is far from over. “The Democratic Party would like us to believe [we’re now in the general election season], and they behaved that way even before Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race. But we are, in fact, still in a Democratic-primary season. Biden is only the presumptive nominee,” she said, before adding, “And there’s all kinds of whispers and rumors about whether or not something might happen at the convention, which might mean Joe Biden isn’t even the nominee.”

“Are you talking about the Tara Reade allegations?” Green asked.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

The Times Inflates Trump’s Foolishness into Monstrousness By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on April 25th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/media-donald-trump-new-york-times-inflates-foolishness-into-monstrousness/

President Trump should not spit-ball on live television, especially on topics that are outside his ken.

How depressing is the erosion of the principle that when the president of the United States speaks, it means something, that it’s not just stream-of-consciousness that willy-nilly gets revised or reversed or treated like he never really said it. Just as depressing, though, is the media’s abandonment of straightforward fact reporting, in favor of unabashed alliance with Trump’s political opposition.

Why do blind partisans and demagogues have such sway these days? Because no one can trust the reporting of institutions we used to expect would give us an accurate rendition of the facts being debated.

The president’s meanderings about imaginary coronavirus treatments at Thursday’s press conference, and the press’s reporting on them, are case in point.

While it is good for the president to project engaged leadership, that should never take the form of free-flowing dialogue with his advisers. Those conversations should happen behind closed doors. When the president speaks publicly, he should stick to what he is in a position to convey factually, not hypothetically. Especially when it comes to scientific and medical information, as to which he is quickly out of his depth.

At the same time, no matter how much the press abhors Trump, no matter how sincerely believed its conviction that he is a dangerous man who will induce people to do dangerous things, reporters worthy of the name do not have license to portray Trump as living down to their worst fears when he has not.

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