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September 2020

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Erdoğan’s Soft Spot for Hamas by Burak Bekdil

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16449/turkey-erdogan-hamas

So far, Erdoğan’s fanaticism has come without any cost to him internationally, or any damage to his domestic political survivability. He has every ideological and pragmatic reason to keep up his love affair with Hamas.

Erdoğan seemingly loves to make such gatherings [with Hamas terrorist leaders] public to challenge the parts of the world that designate Hamas as a terrorist entity: the EU, Israel and the United States. There is also a message to his Turkish audience: I challenge the world powers, including America, and I remain untouchable.

“In overlooking these designations and thousands of its victims, who were injured and murdered by Hamas terrorists, Turkey is actively supporting it both financially and logistically.” — Spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Fox News, August 28, 2020.

In reality, it is equally possible that these developments might actually spur a two-state solution, by notifying the Palestinians that, as the Arab saying goes, “The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.”

It is not only ideological and not only pragmatic: it is both: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan comes from the ranks of militant Islamism for which the “Palestinian cause” is sacred and “as national as any other national matter.” His love for Hamas and his dedication to the “cause” are genuine. So is his pragmatism.

Erdoğan’s pro-Hamas (and anti-Israeli) fanaticism is one reason why Islamist Turks vote for him. So far, his fanaticism has come without any cost to him internationally, or any damage to his domestic political survivability. He has every ideological and pragmatic reason to keep up his love affair with Hamas.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mueller Team Corruption Contaminates Justice by Chris Farrell

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16525/mueller-investigation-corruption

Are we truly supposed to believe that all of these phones just happened to erase themselves?

You will remember that these very same attorneys and investigators sought to imprison George Papadopoulos for 20 years simply for switching cell phones and deactivating his Facebook account. The government argued that Papadopoulos knowingly committed obstruction per 18 US Code section 1519, with the intent of impeding or otherwise influencing a federal investigation.

The flagrant, outrageous abuse of record-keeping and phone communications requirements by the Mueller team is a prime avenue for further criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham. Attorney General Barr recently said there will be more indictments. Let’s hope so…. The only remedy is the rigorous prosecution of the offenders.

We now know the Mueller Special Counsel Investigation of the Trump-Russia “collusion” claims was a politically motivated hoax. The investigation dragged on for months. Despite increasingly hysterical Leftist speculation of criminal conspiracies and treason — not a single claim was ever made against the President. In the end, Robert Mueller appeared before Congress and seemed befuddled throughout his testimony — “Not with a bang, but with a whimper.”

Consequently, it appears necessary that Mueller and his team need to be the subjects of a criminal investigation. Last week, responding to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, the Justice Department released heavily redacted documents showing that several dozen phones belonging to members of Mueller’s team were “wiped” or disabled before they could be examined by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz during his office’s review of the special counsel’s investigation.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Andrew Cuomo’s Horrific Decisions By Kyle Smith

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/andrew-cuomo-horrific-decisions/

How New York’s petty political turf war led to the deaths of thousands.

O bservers of New York politics over the past several years understand that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s fanatical obsession with humiliating and overruling his fellow Democrat Bill de Blasio towers over every other consideration in the Empire State. Sometimes Cuomo’s habits come across as merely silly, as when he intervened in de Blasio’s decision to euthanize a deer found roaming around in Harlem. Sometimes Cuomo has slowed down de Blasio’s aggressive moves to the left. But when it came to the coronavirus, de Blasio was the first of the two to decide to take it seriously. As always, Cuomo could not allow de Blasio to seem to be ahead of him on any matter, so he reflexively opposed de Blasio’s suggestion to take serious steps to curb the spread of infection. Here at last New York’s petty political turf war led to the deaths of innocent bystanders, as surely as if Cuomo had been spraying bullets around in a gang beef. Rarely, however, do gangsters kill more than a few onlookers. Cuomo’s intransigence cost the New York area an extra 17,000 lives, according to one study.

Throughout January and February, far too many leaders at all levels downplayed the Wuhan virus, but by March 17, New York City’s mayor had seen enough. Schools had shut down the day before, and de Blasio said in a news conference that New Yorkers should prepare to “shelter in place” to slow the spread of the virus. The governor’s team immediately jumped in to tell de Blasio this idea sounded “crazy.” “Phones were ringing off the hook,” de Blasio’s then-press aide Freddi Goldstein told the Wall Street Journal in an exhaustive, damning tick-tock of Cuomo’s horrific decisions. Cuomo’s officers told Goldstein’s crew in City Hall that “de Blasio was scaring people. You have to walk it back. It’s not your call.”

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ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Won’t Answer Court-Packing Question By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on September 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/biden-wont-answer-court-packing-question/

On an issue that could effectively create a revolution, the candidate is mum.

President Trump gets a lot of heat for his answers to questions. Much of the criticism is appropriate, some of it is mock outrage, but one way or the other, Trump does answer the questions.

In fact, he answers hundreds more questions than his opponent. COVID has been devastating for the country, but it’s been a boon for Joe Biden, who has undeniably lost a step or three and does not do well with sustained exposure. Since the former vice president is rarely made available for questioning, you’d think he would answer the questions that he faces on those few occasions. You’d also think that, when he declines to answer legitimate, important questions, that would be a big deal.But he doesn’t answer key questions. And his media friends calculate that if they give you the inside scoop on the amazingly deft political strategy behind not answering questions, you’ll be so wowed you won’t notice that the answers are what matter.

There is no bigger issue in the 2020 campaign than whether, if they take the White House and the Senate, Democrats would eliminate the filibuster. Expanding and packing the Supreme Court would be a direct result of this, and a radical one. But it is only one of a plethora of radical steps that would follow — expanding and packing the lower federal courts, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, single-payer healthcare, elements of the Green New Deal, a massive bailout for mismanaged blue states, breaking up and regulating into submission private businesses, hamstringing the nation’s police forces, gutting the Second Amendment, sweeping immigration amnesty, and so on.

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