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January 2022

Meet Mansour Abbas’s radical Jewish adviser  By RUTHIE BLUM,

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-691784

It’s sad to have to give credit to a member of the Knesset and governing coalition for declaring, in Arabic, that Israel “was born and will remain a Jewish state.”

But the country’s peculiar political reality, in which members of parliament are hostile to that state, requires stretching logic to its limits.

It is thus that I have praised Ra’am (United Arab List) Party leader Mansour Abbas for breaking with the tradition of his Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated peers and former less religious yet equally radical colleagues to place the needs of his constituents above the pernicious aspirations of the anti-Zionist, antisemitic, corrupt Palestinian Authority.

The risk he took by splitting from the Joint (Arab) List bloc and adopting a pragmatic approach has paid off big-time. First, he managed to garner for Ra’am the necessary four mandates to cross the electoral threshold. This led to his being crowned “kingmaker” – the head of the party that ended up tipping the scales to enable the formation of a government after four rounds of inconclusive elections.

Since then, he’s been on a steady roll. No longer a backbencher, he was appointed chairman of the newly created Special Knesset Committee on Arab Affairs. Meanwhile, fellow Ra’am MK Waleed Taha became chairman of the Knesset’s Internal Affairs and Environment Committee on which Ra’am MK Saeed Alharomi had a seat before his death in August.

Abbas has also been successful in his push to increase funding for the Arab sector, plagued by rampant crime and other woes, with a $10 billion allocation included in the recently passed state budget.

ALL OF the above might have been cause for optimism, albeit cautious, if the Ra’am chief hadn’t just picked a virulently anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli academic to serve as his adviser on unrecognized villages in the Negev. Indeed, if anything casts a shadow on Abbas’s intentions, it’s his selection of Dr. Yeela Raanan for the role.

Democrats Cling To J6 Mania Because They Can’t Appeal to Facts or Their Failed Policies Our betters use January 6 to cast half the country as domestic terrorists as a pretext to crack down on dissent and run roughshod over democracy to “save” it–because that’s the only card it has left Benjamin Weingarten

https://weingarten.substack.com/p/democrats-cling-to-j6-mania-because?token=

If the truth supported the narrative, why not charge the accused with insurrection, sedition, and/or terrorism?

From President Joe Biden’s pretentious speeches to schizophrenic media coverage to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sham committee, the left has used Jan. 6 as the shaky scaffolding on which to railroad the rest of the country, in part because it serves as the singular manifestation of its fever dreams – that there is a coup around every corner and a frothing-mad MAGA monster under every bed.

The problem is that Jan. 6, as shameful, pathetic, and unacceptable as were the actions of its worst offenders, was not comparable to 9/11, or Pearl Harbor, or the worst of the Civil War. By scope, violence, and destruction, it pales in comparison to the summer riots of 2020.

The hyperbolic comparisons are a charade – and not just because the facts belie the claims of a murderous insurrection of armed terrorists, as the federal judges most perturbed by Jan. 6 have lamented. (That is, judges are upset prosecutors can’t make legal cases to match the ruling regime’s political one.)

If the Narrative Were True, Why All the Trickery?

We also know it is a charade because of the dishonesty and obfuscation around it. If the truth supported the narrative, why not charge the accused with insurrection, sedition, and/or terrorism?

The Histrionics and Melodrama Around 1/6 Are Laughable, but They Serve Several Key Purposes As Kamala Harris compares 1/6 to 9/11 and Nancy Pelosi introduces the cast of Hamilton to sing about democracy, today’s inanity should not obscure its dangers. Glenn Greenwald

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-histrionics-and-melodrama-around?token=

The number of people killed by pro-Trump supporters at the January 6 Capitol riot is equal to the number of pro-Trump supporters who brandished guns or knives inside the Capitol. That is the same number as the total of Americans who — after a full year of a Democrat-led DOJ conducting what is heralded as “the most expansive federal law enforcement investigation in US history” — have been charged with inciting insurrection, sedition, treason or conspiracy to overthrow the government as a result of that riot one year ago. Coincidentally, it is the same number as Americans who ended up being criminally charged by the Mueller probe of conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, and the number of wounds — grave or light — which AOC, who finally emerged at night to assure an on-edge nation that she was “okay” while waiting in an office building away from the riot at the rotunda, sustained on that solemn day.

That number is zero. But just as these rather crucial facts do not prevent the dominant wing of the U.S. corporate media and Democratic Party leaders from continuing to insist that Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory was illegitimate due to his collusion with the Kremlin, it also does not prevent January 6 from being widely described in those same circles as an Insurrection, an attempted coup, an event as traumatizing as Pearl Harbor (2,403 dead) or the 9/11 attack (2,977 dead), and as the gravest attack on American democracy since the mid-19th Century Civil War (750,000 dead). The Huffington Post’s White House reporter S.V. Date said that it was wrong to compare 1/6 to 9/11, because the former — the three-hour riot at the Capitol — was “1,000 percent worse.”

Indeed, when it comes to melodrama, histrionics, and exploitation of fear levels from the 1/6 riot, there has never been any apparent limit. And today — the one-year anniversary of that three-hour riot — there is no apparent end in sight. Too many political and media elites are far too vested in this maximalist narrative for them to relinquish it voluntarily.

The orgy of psychodrama today was so much worse and more pathetic than I expected — and I expected it to be extremely bad and pathetic. “House Democrats [waited] their turn on the House floor to talk to Dick Cheney as a beacon for American democracy,” reported CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere; “One by one, Democrats are coming over to introduce themselves to former VP Dick Cheney and shake his hand,” added ABC News’ Ben Siegel. Nancy Pelosi gravely introduced Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Hamilton to sermonize and sing about the importance of American democracy. The Huffington Post’s senior politics reporter Igor Bobic unironically expressed gratitude for “the four legged emotional support professionals roaming the Capitol this week, helping officers, staffers, and reporters alike.” Yesterday, CNN’s Kaise Hunt announced: “Tomorrow is going to be a tough one for those of us who were there or had loved ones in the building. Thinking of all of you and finding strength knowing I’m not alone in this.” Unsurprisingly but still repellently: Kamala Harris today compared 1/6 to 9/11.

VP Kamala Harris: The Date Of January 6 Will Be Remembered Like September 11, December 7 By Tim Hains

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/01/06/vp_kamala_harris_the_date_of_january_6_will_be_remembered_like_september_11_december_7.html

Certain dates echo throughout history, including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them — where they were and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault. Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, but a place in our collective memory. December 7th, 1941. September 11th, 2001. And January 6th, 2021.

On that day, I was not only Vice President-elect, I was also a United States senator. And I was here at the Capitol that morning, at a classified hearing with fellow members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Hours later, the gates of the Capitol were breached.

I had left. But my thoughts immediately turned not only to my colleagues, but to my staff, who had been forced to seek refuge in our office, converting filing cabinets into barricades.

What the extremists who roamed these halls targeted was not only the lives of elected leaders. What they sought to degrade and destroy was not only a building, hallowed as it is. What they were assaulting were the institutions, the values, the ideals that generations of Americans have marched, picketed, and shed blood to establish and defend.

On January 6th, we all saw what our nation would look like if the forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful. The lawlessness, the violence, the chaos.
What was at stake then, and now, is the right to have our future decided the way the Constitution prescribes it: by we, the people — all the people.

Federal authorities won’t say why armed Capitol rioters disappeared from FBI’s most wanted list by Andrew Kerr

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/federal-authorities-wont-say-why-armed-capitol-rioters-disappeared-from-fbis-most-wanted-list

Federal authorities won’t explain why three men who participated in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, have mysteriously disappeared from the FBI’s Capitol Violence Most Wanted list.

One unidentified man wore an earpiece during the riot and was filmed carrying what appeared to be a concealed handgun on his left hip. The man was pictured on the FBI’s most wanted list for over five months until he was removed without explanation on the same day the New York Times reported an FBI informant was at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

A second unidentified man was filmed beating police officers with a baton during the riot. The FBI said the man was wanted for assaulting a federal law enforcement officer, but the agency removed the man from its most wanted list without explanation in late February, just weeks after his debut

The third man, Ray Epps of Arizona, was filmed in the hours leading up to the riot urging Trump supporters to enter the Capitol to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.

Epps has not been arrested or charged for his actions. His unexplained removal from the FBI’s most wanted list on July 1 has fueled speculation from a member of the House Judiciary Committee that Epps may have agitated people to storm the Capitol at the behest of the FBI.

Video footage shows Epps, a former president of the Arizona Oath Keepers militia group, urging a crowd of Trump supporters on the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, to “go into the Capitol” the next day, provoking allegations from the crowd that he was working for the federal authorities.

Yale and Princeton Take a Stand Against Student Freedom Tyler Cowen

https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/yale-princeton-covid-policies-are-hard-to-take-seriously

For anyone who believes that America’s elite institutions of higher learning are taken far too seriously — and I count myself among the believers — the last two years have been bracing. Of course I am referring to Covid policy, in particular the current efforts of Princeton and Yale to restrict the off-campus movements of their students in fairly radical ways.

This week Yale sent out an email laying out requirements for returning students. According to the Yale Daily News, there will be a campus-wide quarantine until Feb. 7, which may be extended. Furthermore, students “may not visit New Haven businesses or eat at local restaurants (even outdoors) except for curbside pickup.”

Meanwhile, in Princeton, the university issued this announcement on Dec. 27: “Beginning January 8 through mid-February, all undergraduate students who have returned to campus will not be permitted to travel outside of Mercer County or Plainsboro Township for personal reasons, except in extraordinary circumstances. … We’ll revisit and, if possible, revise this travel restriction by February 15.”

My first reaction, as someone who teaches at George Mason University in northern Virginia, is to be amazed that the life of the Yale campus and the life of New Haven can be so readily separated. If Yale truly has evolved to be a separate enclave, then that is a sign of trouble, pandemic or not.

My school is so integrated with the local community — including a large number of commuting students — that such a regulation would be unthinkable. Princeton at least is recognizing that the university and the town are pretty much inseparable.

My second reaction is that these two elite American institutions have lost their moorings. Can you imagine your school telling you not to leave the county? (Though Princeton sports teams are somehow exempted.)

More bad news on Covid vaccines and myocarditis in men under 40 – even as more colleges require booster shots for students Alex Berenson

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/more-bad-news-on-covid-vaccines-and/comments

A huge new study has found the risk of serious heart problems called myocarditis in men under 40 soars with each dose of a Covid mRNA vaccine – and is sharply higher than the risk from a coronavirus infection itself.

The findings call into sharp question the efforts by American colleges and universities to make their students receive booster shots before returning to school this January – especially since other studies have shown that the risk of post-vaccine myocarditis is concentrated not merely in men under 40 but in those aged 16-25.

The study, which British researchers released in late December, showed that the risk of myocarditis almost doubled after the first Pfizer shot in men under 40. Then it doubled again after the second and doubled again after the third – to almost eight times the baseline risk.

For the Moderna vaccine, the risks were even higher, reaching 16-fold after the second shot. (The risk of a third Moderna shot could not be calculated because too few people received it.)

Because each Moderna shot contains 100 micrograms of mRNA, while each Pfizer shot contains 30, the findings suggest strongly that the heart risks are dose-related and likely to continue to rise with each additional shot.

The study also contained some evidence that post-vaccine myocarditis might be more dangerous than other forms of myocarditis. It showed a trend towards higher death rates in people hospitalized for myocarditis after vaccination compared to other myocarditis cases.

Jan. 6 And The Curse Of Whataboutism By: Ben Domenech

https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/06/jan-6-and-the-curse-of-whataboutism/

The importance of learning nothing and forgetting nothing.

A year on, there are numerous valid and important questions about what happened on Jan. 6 and why. There are questions to be asked about the decisions that led directly to what was a peaceful political protest turning into a violent riot. The language used by its popularizers as an attempted coup — insurrection, threat to democracy, seconds from losing the country, etc. — are all meant to elide this point.

Time’s Molly Ball says it here: without a massive breakdown in policing and security, this would be a day no one remembered.

So the questions that present themselves are: why were Capitol Police so unprepared for a rally that made crystal clear its intentions to go to the Hill? Why did multiple requests and offers of additional support go rebuffed? Why do so many of the agitators, some of them armed, remain free and at large instead of under arrest? Why were so many individuals allowed into the building without being stopped? And — and this one bothers me most of all — what can the possible excuse be, in the most surveilled area in the most surveilled American city, for not knowing who the attempted pipe bomber is after all this time?

A commission that was interested in the answers to these questions could be valuable, even worthwhile, in a way that nearly every after-action commission is not. But the unconstitutional January 6th Commission, which exists primarily as a way to channel Liz Cheney’s score-settling and Nancy Pelosi’s thin reed of 2022 hopes, is not interested in any of this. They’re not even interested in ensuring the implementation of the Inspector General’s report on Capitol Police failures, which they are still ignoring.

A Five-Step Program to Beat COVID Greg Williams

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/public-health/2022/01/a-five-step-program-to-beat-covid/

EXCERPT

When bureaucrats are telling doctors how they are to treat patients, and giving the doctors themselves no leeway to vary the treatment, then it is not the patient who is ill, it is society that perpetrates such outrages. We desperately need to allow doctors and patients to chart their mutually agreed treatment pathways. 

The second step along the pathway to freedom from COVID is to abandon that one-dimensional vaccination pathway.  Any rational person would have to admit by now that the vaccinations are not working as billed. Remember how we wee told the double-jab vaccines were coming and how they would stop the virus in its tracks?  Then the same oracles of epidemiology said we’d need a booster after the impact of the first two jabs waned to zero, or even incurred a negative, after a relatively short six months.  Governments are now promising the booster will be the end of it, but we only have to look overseas to see many countries are well into implementing the second booster, or, if one keeps count, the fourth.  One could fairly question our own government about the integrity of the promise that the booster will be the end of it, when it has purchased sufficient supplies to keep us boosted every three months for several years into the future.  The inoculated have turned out to be just as contagious as unvaccinated people, and hospital numbers are skyrocketing among the vaccinated. Today (Jan 5), for example, the two most populous states, NSW and Victoria, are reporting 35,054 and  17,636 cases respectively.

To abandon the face mask/lockdown/vaccinate paradigm adopted by almost all state governments, a suitable alternative must be on offer.  There are any number of early treatment protocols that are used in other parts of the world, but which are banned by the Therapeutic Goods Administration and health bureaucrats here in Australia.  The early treatment protocols include medications and supplements in various doses involving ivermectin, fluvoxamine, aspirin, Vitamin D, quercetin, zinc, monoclonal antibodies, and steroids.

As I said at the start of this article, I am no medical specialist, but I am sure there are plenty of doctors out there who would love to provide packages made up with some of these protocols.  If a government is keen to spend money on fixing the problem, rather than pouring billions of dollars into failing vaccines, perhaps GPs and hospitals could be provided with packages that contain, in appropriate dosages, some or all of the above-mentioned medications and supplements.  Just to keep everyone happy, I would include a set of masks, as well as antiseptic hand wash, all with instructions about the need to isolate and maintain good hygiene within the patient’s domicile.

The third step on the path to normalcy is probably the toughest, as it is going to require politicians, health bureaucrats and the media to admit that they have got it wrong.  The first thing they need to do is stop discovering cases.  That’s right! Stop discovering cases.  Once that happens they will stop reporting on “cases”, and stop the incessant fearmongering that has been going on in our communities for the past 24 months.  The easiest way to stop discovering cases is to close down the numerous public testing facilities.  Similarly, all the contact tracing can then be put aside.  People will not have to check in to every place they visit.  The reality of the virus now is that the Omicron strain is by far and away the dominant strain, and its symptoms appear to be comparable with the common cold — albeit, in some cases, a severe cold.

DeSantis Derangement Syndrome a Boon for Florida GOP By Stephen Kruiser

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2022/01/06/the-morning-briefing-desantis-derangement-syndrome-a-boon-for-florida-gop-n1547284

We’ve all been witnessing the spectacle of the leftist panic porn crowd admitting that we here in Knuckle-Dragging Land have been right about everything all throughout the Wuhan Chinese Bat Flu plague. OK, they’re not actually admitting that, but I’m hard-pressed to think of a conservative position on Covid that hasn’t been co-opted by the leftist “experts” in the last two weeks.

Of course, the most prominent Republican to have been right all along is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Regulars here know that I’m a big fan of his. As I wrote last fall, every time the Democrats go after him they not only fail, they fail badly.

Little did I know then how badly.

Mr. Green (Stephen the Younger on the PJ Media Ranch) wrote yesterday about a stunning demographic shift in the Sunshine State:

Florida Republicans outnumber registered Democrats for the first time in the state’s history, as Blue State COVID refugees tick the Big R on their voter registrations.

Twitter user TimDCpolitico took Florida’s voter rolls from March 31 of 2020 and compared them to the latest figures. The results, he says, are “jaw-dropping,” and I can’t think of a better way to describe them.

Not only did the Democrats’ relentless slandering over the course of almost two years do no damage to him but it ended up greatly helping his party.