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August 2020

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Michelle Obama’s DNC Speech Disqualifies Joe Biden For The Presidency By Kylee Zempel

By on August 18th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/18/michelle-obamas-dnc-speech-disqualifies-joe-biden-for-the-presidency/

Michelle Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention Monday night, ostensibly in support of Joe Biden. Appealing to her intimate knowledge of the office of the presidency, the former first lady offered a glimpse of what it takes to lead the country. Instead of inspiring confidence in the former vice president, however, her speech disqualified Biden for the Oval.

“I am one of a handful of people living today who have seen firsthand the immense weight and awesome power of the presidency. And let me once again tell you this: The job is hard,” Michelle Obama said. “It requires clear-headed judgment, a mastery of complex and competing issues, a devotion to facts and history, a moral compass, and an ability to listen — and an abiding belief that each of the 330,000,000 lives in this country has meaning and worth.”

Clear-headed judgment? A mastery of complex issues? A commitment to life? In just one short list of requirements, Obama betrayed Biden’s capacity.

The long months of this election cycle have consisted of gaffe after gaffe from Biden, causing onlookers to question his mental fitness and thus to doubt his “clear-headed judgment.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” Biden said back in March during a Texas campaign stop. “All men and women created by — go — you know — you know the thing.” The thing to which he refers is of course the Declaration of Independence, and one of its most recognizable lines at that.

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Will the Dam Break After Clinesmith’s Plea? By Charles Lipson

By on August 18th, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/08/18/will_the_dam_break_after_clines

News reports have downplayed the significance of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith’s guilty plea, acknowledging he altered an official document in the government’s Trump-Russia collusion probe. There has been some coverage, mainly because it is so rare to see FBI agents charged with a felony and because it is the first tangible result of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s sprawling investigation of the investigators. But mainstream news outlets have minimized its importance. It’s only one count, they say, and it deals with a relatively minor crime by a mid-level figure.

That’s spin, and it’s wrong. This plea is like finding water seeping from the base of a dam. The problem is not one muddy puddle. The problem is that it foreshadows the dam’s failure, releasing a torrent. That’s what the Clinesmith plea portends.

What Did Clinesmith Admit?

Clinesmith acknowledges he altered an email from the CIA to the FBI, answering a question about Carter Page. Page is an American citizen and a Naval Academy graduate who spent considerable time in Russia. His time abroad raised a question for the FBI’s counter-intelligence division. Was Page a Russian agent? Or was he on our side, helping the U.S. gather intelligence about the Kremlin? The CIA would know.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Scattershot Convention Matthew Continetti

By on August 18th, 2020

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/the-scattershot-convention/

The first night of the virtual Democratic convention was a scattershot event. Topics ran the gamut from coronavirus to systemic racism to the Post Office. Speakers ranged from Meg Whitman to Gretchen Whitmer to Bernie Sanders. Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker and Tom Steyer and the other 2020 also-rans combined for the same amount of time as Andrew Cuomo. Policy specifics were light, though Kamala Harris did offhandedly mention that she was “excited” Biden supports the “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.”

The theme was unity. “We the People” was a constant refrain. Biden wants to assemble the largest possible coalition, including both John Kasich Republicans and Sanders progressives. The micro-targeted messages had little in common. Kasich reassured independents and Republicans that Biden won’t go far left as president because that sort of ideological swerve isn’t in his character. Within the hour, Sanders was telling his supporters that they had moved the country in a “bold new direction” that would continue under Biden. Unlike Kasich, Sanders offered concrete examples of issues where Biden has moved closer to his position.

What unifies this coalition is antipathy to President Trump. There are a million reasons voters oppose Trump, and the Democratic convention programmers seem determined to mention them all. It might work as a campaign strategy but is sure to run into trouble should Biden find himself president next January.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Jews’ Right To Statehood: A Defense by Ruth Gavison

By on August 18th, 2020

https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/israel-zionism/2020/08/the-jews-right-to-s

Is it possible to justify the existence of a Jewish state? So asked the late Ruth Gavison back in 2003, and her answer resounds as strongly now as it did then.

This essay by the renowned Israeli legal theorist Ruth Gavison was originally published in the Israeli journal Azure in 2003. We are republishing it August 18, 2020 in the wake of her death on August 15.

I.

Is it possible to justify the existence of a Jewish state? This question, raised with increased frequency in recent years, is not just a theoretical one. Israel will endure as a Jewish state only if it can be defended, in both the physical and the moral sense. Of course, states may survive in the short term through sheer habit or the application of brute force, even when their legitimacy has been severely undermined. In the long run, however, only a state whose existence is justified by its citizens can hope to endure. The ability to provide a clear rationale for a Jewish state is, therefore, of vital importance to Israel’s long-term survival.1

Over the many years in which I have participated in debates about Israel’s constitutional foundations and the rights of its citizens, I did not generally feel this question to be particularly urgent. Indeed, I believed that there was no more need to demonstrate the legitimacy of a Jewish state than there was for any other nation state, and I did not take claims to the contrary very seriously. Those who denied the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state were, in my eyes, little different from the radical ideologues who dismiss all national movements as inherently immoral, or who insist that Judaism is solely a religion with no right to national self-expression; their claims seemed marginal and unworthy of systematic refutation.

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RUTHIE BLUM: NETANYAHUS ‘S BOLD MOVE

By on August 18th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/netanyahus-bold-move/

he Israeli right is wrong to see the prime minister’s deal with the UAE as a capitulation to foreign pressure. He is creating optimal conditions for the Jewish state’s road ahead.

Anyone wondering what had become of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ostensible July 1 target date to begin the process of extending sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria received an answer last Thursday.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement on Aug. 13 that Washington had brokered a peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates—and accompanying reports that the deal precluded “annexation of the West Bank”—put the question to rest.

Once it emerged that Netanyahu had been busy for the past few weeks negotiating the terms of the treaty with Trump and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, his sudden silence on sovereignty became clear. Ironically, the weekly protests outside of the Israeli premier’s official residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem included the chanting of slogans and waving of banners decrying his “annexation” plans.

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Israel again denies itself sovereignty in its ancestral heartland Victor Sharpe

By on August 18th, 2020

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285388

The Arabs have finally learned the secret: say nice words to the Jews and they will fall over themselves to give away their own heritage.

There would be nothing more wondrous than true peace by an Arab state with Israel. What you will read below, however, is why my growing suspicion and fear about this peace with an Arab state was immediately confirmed when I realized that this “breakthrough” was not anything to be congratulated, but rather to be criticized.

Jared Kushner may have wrought the means by which an eventual Palestinian terror state will be carved out of the heart of Judea and Samaria. This is a catastrophic and blatant denial of Jewish sovereignty within its Biblical and ancestral heartland.

Note that Mohammed bin Zayed uses the word, “annexation” and describes the ancestral Jewish heartland as “Palestinian territories.” A native people, the Jews, do not annex what is their own historical, Biblical and spiritual land. Nor is this Palestinian territory, for there has never existed a Palestinian state and there has never been a separate Palestinian Arab people throughout all of history.

All of Judea and Samaria is the ancestral and Biblical Jewish heartland, and restoration of Jewish villages and towns in the historical, spiritual heartland is not “annexation” but liberation and redemption.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Dems open eclectic convention with GOP defectors, a Russian lobbyist and Michelle Obama Former First Lady calls on Dems to vote for Biden ‘like our lives depend on it,’ Sanders says planet ‘at stake’ By Nicholas Ballasy

By on August 18th, 2020

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/obama-calls-dems-vote-biden-our-lives-depend-it-sanders-says-planet-stake

Delivering on a promise for variety, the Democrats showcased the diverse and at times unpredictable state of their party during the first night of former Vice President Joe Biden’s nominating convention.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, warned that planet earth was at stake in the upcoming election while several Republican defectors pledged their support for the impending nominee — including a former congresswoman who worked for Russia as a lobbyist. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on the sidelines of the event, offered an unexpected defense of China. 

In the end, it was Michelle Obama’s impassioned plea for unity to defeat President Trump that rounded out the evening and stole the show.

“We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012. We’ve got to show up with the same level of passion and hope for Joe Biden,” she said when closing out the first night of the convention.

Obama also directly attacked Trump, calling him “the wrong president for our country.”

“He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is,” she said.

“If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can and they will if we don’t make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it,” she added.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

It’s Official: Palestinians Join Iran-led Anti-Peace Camp by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on August 18th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16362/palestinian-iran-anti-peace

By holding a political protest at the compound of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinians are not only desecrating the sanctity of the site, but also sending a warning to citizens of UAE not to visit Jerusalem or the mosque, as many apparently hoped to do.

The Joint Statement of the United States, Israel, and the UAE on August 13 points out that according to President Donald J. Trump’s Vision for Peace, “all Muslims who come in peace may visit and pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Jerusalem’s other holy sites should remain open for peaceful worshippers of all faiths.”

This warning shows that the Palestinians believe they have exclusive control over Islam’s third-holiest site and are free to decide who can visit the site and who cannot. It is therefore the right time for Arabs and Muslims to step in to demand an end to Palestinian hegemony over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites in Jerusalem.

By declaring war on the UAE, the Palestinian leadership has chosen to align itself with those who seek the elimination of Israel: Iran, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. The Palestinian leadership has again demonstrated its determination to act against the interests of its own people, who could have benefited from the UAE-Israel deal by seeking financial aid from the Arab countries and jobs in the Gulf states.

The Palestinians have spent the past few months trying to persuade the international community, including Arab countries, to help prevent Israel from applying its sovereignty to portions of the West Bank.

Now that one of these countries – the United Arab Emirates – succeeded in striking a deal with Israel, according to which the Israeli plan to extend Israeli law to more land would be suspended, the Palestinians are waging an unprecedented campaign of defamation against the UAE and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed.

Instead of thanking the UAE for managing to suspend the Israeli plan, Palestinians are protesting against the UAE because of its decision to normalize its relations with Israel. Palestinians have been burning UAE flags and photos of Bin Zayed and denouncing him as a “traitor,” as well as accusing him of “stabbing the Palestinians and Arabs in the back” and “betraying Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem and the Palestinian cause.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Protests in Belarus by Judith Bergman

By on August 18th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16353/belarus-protests

“You speak about unfair elections and want fair ones? I have an answer for you. We had the elections. Unless you kill me, there will be no other elections.” — Alexander Lukashenko, Tass News Agency, August 17, 2020.

Lukashenko’s crackdown on the protests has been particularly severe: Some 6,700 have been detained since protests erupted in the evening of August 9, at least two people have died and many more have been wounded. Riot police have used rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades to disperse thousands of peaceful demonstrators.

“Crowds outside a detention centre in Minsk say the screams of torture victims are audible from outside, and video footage corroborates this. The evidence points to a campaign of widespread torture and other ill-treatment by the Belarusian authorities who are intent on crushing peaceful protests by any means…. These are people whose only ‘crime’ was to take to the streets in peaceful protest. What we are seeing in Belarus is a human rights catastrophe that demands urgent action.” — Marie Struthers, Amnesty International Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, August 13, 2020.

Unlike the murder of George Flynn in the US, the horrifying police brutality against thousands of peaceful demonstrators in Belarus has not caught the attention of Western activists, none of whom has taken to the streets in solidarity with innocent Belarussians.

The people of Belarus probably need a strong Western response, not just to counter Lukashenko and the rigged elections, but also to show Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who has been pushing for ever-closer “integration” with Belarus for many years, that Belarus will not be abandoned by the West.

Ukraine, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which border Belarus, will be following developments closely. The West really needs to do the same: supporting Belarussian civil society, while deterring Russia’s designs on the country.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron grip since 1994, “won” his sixth presidential election on August 9 with a remarkable 80% of the vote. Both the US and the EU have described the election — much like the previous elections there — as neither free nor fair.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Black Lives Matter movement to play elevated role at convention By Rebecca Klar –

By on August 18th, 2020

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/511932-black-lives-matter-movement-to-play-elevated-role-at-convention

The message of Black Lives Matter will be woven throughout the 2020 Democratic National Convention, starting with a focus on racial injustice during the first night of programming.

The plan by convention organizers to elevate the Black Lives Matter movement reflects the party’s growing embrace of its calls for action on racial inequality and police brutality over the past four years, particularly since the May 25 police killing of George Floyd.

The lineup of prime-time programming for the convention doesn’t list a time slot for Black Lives Matter activists as of Thursday, but the Democratic National Committee (DNC) indicated there would be a focus on the movement and racial injustice throughout the entirety of the convention.

“The Black Lives Matter movement has given voice to the deep-seated inequality that has plagued our nation since its inception,” DNC Chair Tom Perez said in a statement. “The Democratic Party shares in their commitment to justice and hears their demands for change. When we nominate Joe Biden to be our standard-bearer, we will not miss this moment to ensure those values are reflected in everything we do.”

Racial injustice will be a key part of the “We the People” programming on Monday, according to the DNC and Biden campaign. Speakers that evening include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and former first lady Michelle Obama.

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