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October 2022

Victor Sharpe: As Time Goes By

https://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe/221019

By one of life’s odd coincidences, I recently finished watching Clint Eastwood’s movie on the rise to power of J. Edgar Hoover when I came across a commentary written by J. R. Nyquist in his blog titled, The Time Traveler’s Lesson. It was of an imaginary interrogation by Hoover himself of a man taken into custody by the FBI claiming to be from the future and describing America in the year 2016.

Back in 1964 and upon hearing the time traveler’s description, Hoover exploded in outrage finding the account the most egregious nonsense he had ever heard. No doubt, Hoover concluded, the man’s description of life in the United States 52 years hence was an unmitigated hoax or the man was certifiably insane. But what was it that the time traveler described which so shocked J. Edgar Hoover?

America in the future would be led for eight years by a man with the partly Arabic name of Barack Hussein Obama who was mentored as a youth by a suspected Communist named Frank Marshall Davis.

The time traveler went on to explain that the leading social question of 2016 would be gay marriage. Hoover angrily asked if it was thought by some to be funny to play such a practical joke on the FBI?

Nor did Hoover credit the time traveler’s absurd claim that the national debt was more than $17 trillion in 2016, or that Venezuela and Nicaragua had been quietly taken over by Fidel Castro’s friends, that Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa along with the Congo were now in the hands of African Communists, or that North Korea possessed nuclear weapons. None of this was believable. None of it made any sense to someone living in 1964 during the Cold War.

When the time traveler finally reported that the United States was reduced to a state of manufacturing inferiority to Red China, there was an abrupt end to the interview. Hoover angrily exclaimed, ”What self-respecting American official in 1964 could possibly allow himself to be so insolently abused?”

HISTORIC RELEASE: Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Official Work Calendar (November 2019 – March 2020) An hour-by-hour timeline of who Dr. Fauci was talking to, what he was doing, and where his meetings were in the months before and after the public disclosure of the pandemic. Adam Andrzejewski

https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/historic-release-dr-anthony-faucis

On Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 9am, Dr. Anthony Fauci joined staff at the National Security Council (NSC) — the President’s national security and foreign policy advisory shop — for a meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building about the novel coronavirus. Fauci would continue to have meetings in classified settings throughout the month.

Fauci’s calendar entries included NSC meetings, White House Situation Room meetings, and meetings in other classified settings, as Covid-19 was breaking in China. (To our knowledge, the existence of these meetings before January 28, 2020 were not previously disclosed.)

On Friday, January 24th, four days after China admitted human-to-human transmission of the virus, Fauci started attending a small group Covid discussion that first took place in “Anthony’s Office” in a building next to the White House. Anthony, in this case, appears to be an NSC employee and an expert in biodefense and China.

Flashing back to December 2019, when patients in Wuhan were showing up at hospitals with unidentified pneumonia cases, Fauci attended the National Institutes of Health — Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation dinner and workshops on December 19 and 20th – the sixth annual event for NIH staff and Gates Foundation executives.

On the morning of the 19th, billionaire Bill Gates tweeted out his own hopes for the coming year and his now prescient prediction: “one of the best buys in global health: vaccines.”

Today, we only know about these meetings, because our organization at OpenTheBooks.com, in partnership with the public-interest law firm Judicial Watch, sued the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in federal court. NIH had refused to even acknowledge our Freedom of Information Act request.

So, for the first time, here is our exclusive release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s official calendar:

Awakening from the “Defund” Nightmare Progressive commentators are beginning to notice the damage their criminal-justice policies have wrought in America’s most vulnerable communities. Rav Arora

https://www.city-journal.org/progressives-awakening-from-defund-the-police-nightmare?wallit_nosession=1

Over the past few weeks, several top progressive commentators have completely reversed their views on “defunding police” and adopted a more tough-on-crime approach. Most notably, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian—key figures of the premier progressive outlet The Young Turks—have awakened to the grim consequences of the policies they initially supported.

Uygur recently posted a viral tweet lambasting the “defund the police” movement as “wildly counterproductive framing” and asking progressives when they will “admit they were wrong?” These statements contrast starkly with Uygur’s tweets during the nationwide George Floyd protests: “I’m done. I’m now supporting #DefundThePolice 100%. I already agreed with the substance of the argument & now I’m down for the framing, too.”

The irony of Uygur’s recent statement is that he fails to answer the very question he poses to the Left: he has not acknowledged that he was wrong. In fact, prominent liberal commentators on platforms from The Young Turks to CNN helped popularize the movement that led to massive cuts to police department budgets in 2020. Major cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Austin, and San Francisco slashed funding for their departments amid an unprecedented rise in officer retirements and low officer morale. The financial, cultural, legal, and psychological ramifications of the Black Lives Matter-fueled defund-police movement correlated with record-breaking 30 percent rise in homicides in 2020, followed by another 6 percent rise last year.

Meantime, Uygur’s fellow Young Turks commentator Ana Kasparian has generated a progressive social media backlash for criticizing soft-on-crime prosecution in California. In a clip that went viral on Twitter, Kasparian decries the events leading up to 20-year-old Carlos Delcid’s alleged killing of an off-duty Monterey Park police officer last month. Before the shooting, Delcid had been sentenced to 180 days in prison, but L.A. district attorney George Gascón dropped three of the five felony charges (including witness intimidation, false imprisonment, and assault with a deadly weapon), resulting in his release the next day.

Biden’s Lies About Energy Can No Longer Be Ignored

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/21/bidens-lies-about-energy-can-no-longer-be-ignored/

It’s stunning to hear President Biden (and the rest of the Democrats) spin our growing energy crisis. Like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar, Biden continually tells the American people, “I didn’t do it!” In fact, yes he did. And he still is.

“Let’s debunk some myths: My administration has not stopped or slowed U.S. oil production,” Biden said on Wednesday, adding that he’s “doing everything in my power to reduce gasoline prices.”

Is that true? In fact, the entire energy policy of the Biden administration has been directed at not just slowing, but stopping U.S. oil production. The intended result: Higher gasoline prices for consumers, yet another Bidenflation tax on American families that is already pushing many to the brink of financial insolvency.

That’s not a partisan talking point, by the way. Even his own administration’s energy officials admit that the goal of the administration is to get rid of fossil fuels by raising prices. They just don’t want it now, before the 2022 midterm elections.

Oil output must be limited in order to “make sure that we’re in a better footing to accelerate the transition,” said Amos Hochstein, Biden’s Special Presidential Coordinator for International Energy Affairs.

By the way, we wrote about this back in March of this year, when Biden was fixated on blaming Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin for our self-inflicted energy woes.

“Putin’s war is already hurting American families at the gas pump . . . I’m going to do everything I can to minimize Putin’s price hike here at home,” Biden said, as he banned Russian oil imports.

Just as he did back then, Biden this week blamed U.S. oil companies for the energy mess.

“You’re sitting on record profits and we’re giving you more certainty so you can act now to increase oil production now,” Biden said.

More certainty? Record profits? Sure enough, as energy prices soared recently, quarterly oil company profits jumped along with them. But that’s only part of the story.

Behind the anti-Bibi camp’s vilification of Ben-Gvir By RUTHIE BLUM

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-720196

With each passing day ahead of the fast-approaching November 1 Knesset elections, the rhetoric against opposition leader and Likud Party chairman Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu increases in volume and vitriol. Gossip disguised as investigative reportage keeps cropping up about the former prime minister vying to return to the premiership. 

This is coupled with, and often overshadowed by, warnings about the perils of a government that includes MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, No. 2 on the Religious Zionist Party slate. The right-wing firebrand is not only certain to retain his parliamentary seat, but – given his soaring popularity in the polls – will be a prominent figure in a Netanyahu-forged coalition. 

The mudslinging consists of rival politicians and leftist pundits shouting daily from podiums and op-ed pages that Netanyahu will stop at nothing to return to the helm; that Ben-Gvir is a fascist; and that a victory for their camp will mean an end to Israeli democracy.

The ridiculous accusations would be funny if they weren’t echoed in the halls of Washington and Brussels by Israel’s ill-wishers, as well as by ignorant fellow travelers.

Less understood outside of Israel is the real reason that the anti-Netanyahu choir has been singing so loudly about Ben-Gvir. Prime Minister Yair Lapid cannot form a coalition without the backing of the Arab parties. Even with all three of them, he still falls short of the necessary 61-mandate majority. 

One of these is the United Arab List (Ra’am). Though it is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated southern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, its chairman, MK Mansour Abbas, became the first of his ilk to join a governing coalition. 

Over-Population Fears are Fruitless Says Ruth Institute President Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

“According to the United Nations, the earth’s population will reach 8 billion around November 15, 2022. As we approach this milestone, a chorus of doom will arise from those who insist the earth is over-populated,” said Ruth Institute President Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. “But that is utter nonsense.”

“Misanthropists have warned of over-population for more than 200 years. In the late 18th century, when Thomas Malthus predicted that over-population would lead to mass starvation, there were fewer than 1 billion of us on earth. Instead, the past two centuries have been the most prosperous in human history.”

“His folly was repeated by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, which forecast global catastrophe in the 1970s. Simply put, The Population Bomb bombed.”

“When Ehrlich wrote this, population was at 3.7 billion. Now we’re more than twice that number, and, by almost every measure, we are better off today than we were 54 years ago,” Morse said.

“More people lead to more production and innovation. A growing population results in more exploration and more efficient methods of extracting and utilizing natural resources, which – absent the heavy hand of government – leads to lower prices.”

“Every advance in history, from the Age of Exploration to the Computer Age, has been spurred by population growth,” Morse added.

It’s Not Just Kanye: Antisemitism and the Black Community By Laureen Lipsky

https://www.israpundit.org/its-not-just-kanye-antisemitism-and-the-black-community/

Not much unifies Jews these days, sadly, but the tweet from  Kanye West on Saturday, October 8 did just that.  A world-famous celebrity with 31.5 million followers on Twitter threatened the Jewish people in a response to a fellow black celebrity, Sean Combs, and accused him of being controlled by Jews.

While the spotlight of calling out antisemitism is currently focused on Mr. West, and rightfully so, antisemitism has been prevalent in the Black community for decades.  Kanye and those like him, especially in the entertainment space, who have the loudspeaker, repeat ingrained tropes, stemming from numerous Black churches; from certain Black hate groups; and of course from the most famous of Jew-haters, who retains massive power today: minister Louis Farrakhan.

Was it always this way?  Luckily, the answer is no.

During Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War, there was a strong relationship between Jews and Black people.  Several prominent Jews helped build schools in the South for Black children, and that led to firm ties between the two communities.

In 1960, the SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) was founded.  It was targeted toward younger Black people to stand up for equal rights.  In its earlier years, its members had great relationships with Jews, and it spearheaded a greater coordination to incorporate Jews into the Civil Rights struggle.  Yet when the 1967 Six-Day War against Israel broke out and Israel won, the leaders of the SNCC were already more radicalized thanks to Ethel Minor, the communications director of the group, who had formed ties with the Nation of Islam and turned on Israel.

Ethel Minor set the tone of the SNCC, and that included an antisemitic voice against Israel, which meant Jews.  This is when the lies began about “Palestinians” being a distinct ethnicity.  Playing into the Soviet propaganda, the lies about Jews being “occupiers” started to seep into the Black community.

Is the Red Wave Back? The question for Republicans is what will they do if—perhaps when—they reacquire congressional power. The question is doubly relevant with two more years of guaranteed Democratic White House control. By Josh Hammer

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/20/is-the-red-wave-back/

In the dog days of summer, as Joe Biden’s average approval rating plummeted to historic lows amid an intense flurry of national setbacks, policy blunders, and rhetorical “gaffes” (otherwise known as palpable senility), most in the punditry class began to predict an imminent “red wave” of Republican electoral dominance in November’s midterm elections.

The midterms that take place two years after a new presidency typically favor the opposition party, after all, and certain data—such as the four-decade-high inflation rate that was, and still is, raging like wildfire—pointed in the direction of a strong ballot-box backlash to one-party Democratic rule. At that time, we could also add in an “eyeball test” of sorts: Uncle Joe was (and still is), quite simply, way too old and way too bad at this.

Then, from late July through Labor Day weekend in early September, the momentum seemed to shift a bit toward the incumbent party. Democrats largely outperformed expectations in special elections in Nebraska, Minnesota and New York, and the culturally conservative state of Kansas resoundingly rejected a pro-life attempt to amend the state’s constitution to democratize the abortion issue and let the state legislature decide Kansas abortion policy.

In general, for about four to six weeks, we began to see enough data trickle in to suggest that a “Dobbs backlash”—whereby the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would have the effect of energizing and mobilizing progressive voters—might really be in the offing. Some promising Republican Senate candidates in reliably Trumpy states, such as J. D. Vance in Ohio, seemed to be failing to gain polling traction. The punditocracy switched gears: The “red wave” might simply be a shapeless “purple drip.” (Some of us, it must be said, suggested that little had actually changed.)

How much more evidence does the press need that global warming is otherwise known as ‘the weather’? By Jack Hellner

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/10/how_much_more_evidence_does_the_press_need_that_global_warming_is_otherwise_known_as_the_weather.html

For 150 years, there has been exponential growth in the use of coal, oil, crude oil, gasoline, propane, and heating oil. There has been a massive increase in the use of cars, trucks, CO2, methane, the population, and numerous other things we are told cause an existential threat of rapid warming of the Earth. 

If all of the things that we are told cause warming actually did that, we would not see the record cold temperatures throughout  significant portions of the U.S. in October 2022.

Such as here:

Cold blast to bring record-breaking temperatures to large part of U.S. this week

The chilly temps could affect more than 60 million people as far west as Colorado and south into Florida, according to the National Weather Service.

High temperatures in Midwestern, Northeastern and even Southeastern states are expected to be 10 to 25 degrees below average, with low temperatures near freezing possible as far south in cities like Atlanta and Jackson, Mississippi.

How many pieces of scientific data are necessary that show the climate has always changed cyclically and naturally before this fraud ends, or before the media asks questions and does research instead of just repeating talking points?

John Kerry, Al Gore, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others should be asked the simple question: How do we have record cold temperatures after 150 years of the exponential growth of natural resources if that causes warming? 

If there is no correlation, there is no causation. 

The Green Energy Profiteering Scam “Green” Profits Can Only Rise if Citizens’ Freedoms Fall by J.B. Shurk

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19008/green-energy-profiteering

When governments limit drilling and mining for hydrocarbons in the ground, they manufacture scarcity.

When only certain wealthy individuals and companies can afford artificially expensive hydrocarbon energies as regular business costs, then budding entrepreneurs and small firms can no longer compete. Those at the peak of society’s wealth pyramid have a much easier time staying on top when the same natural sources of hydrocarbon energy once used to amass fortunes are now denied to those who would do the same.

A war on “fossil” fuels is a superb tactic for protecting private market share. It is a profitable ideological cause for fattening government revenues. And it is a constant source of income for environmental “nonprofits” and other special interests….

Can plastics, heating oil, and most synthetic materials found around a home be magically manufactured without petroleum?

Can the global population stave off famine and starvation if farmers are forced to overhaul agricultural and livestock production methods in order to abide by “green” laws limiting the use or release of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, and phosphate — molecules and compounds essential to basic farming and high crop yield fertilizers?

Ideology hijacks the market’s natural direction toward an objective and transparent “meeting of the minds.” There is an unspoken but unmistakable fraud. Until governments, including hostile adversaries such as Russia and the United States, conspired to limit the use of hydrocarbon energy and “go green,” the idea that anybody could turn a profit from the wind or sun would have seemed as absurd as a vendor selling rocks freely available all around us.

Are electric vehicles as powerful as their internal combustion engine counterparts? Can wind and solar energies really provide nations with reliable power grids robust enough to avoid rolling blackouts? Can plastics, heating oil, and most synthetic materials found around a home be magically manufactured without petroleum?

Can the global population stave off famine and starvation if farmers are forced to overhaul agricultural and livestock production methods in order to abide by “green” laws limiting the use or release of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, and phosphate — molecules and compounds essential to basic farming and high crop yield fertilizers?

In free markets, commodities bought and sold possess perceived value. When a buyer and seller reach an agreed upon price for any product, there is a “meeting of the minds.” The value of any natural raw material is proportional to its scarcity. The more of it there is, and the more easily it can be obtained, the less value it holds. A vendor who sells ordinary rocks cannot make a living when his product is found freely all over the ground. If he transacts in gold or silver, diamonds or rubies, however, his hard-to-find “rocks” are worth a small fortune. If only there were a way to turn ordinary rocks into valuable commodities!

There are, in fact, two well-known ways to do so. An unscrupulous vendor could simply paint ordinary rocks gold and pretend that common minerals are rare, and an unsuspecting customer might never be the wiser. Through fraud, the seller can hijack the perceived value of his goods and undermine the agreed “meeting of the minds” between himself and any deceived customer. His “precious” rocks actually hold no value but provide him with ill-gotten gains. Over time, however, this type of fraud does not last. More discerning customers eventually catch on to the ruse, and that information is shared among prospective buyers. And unless he is quick to move on to a new town with new buyers yet to be deceived, old swindled customers are likely to end his livelihood or much worse. Engaging in illicit fraud comes with serious personal risks.