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Ruth King

Dr. Scott Atlas on Vaccine Mandates for Children, Natural Immunity, and Florida’s COVID-19 Surge

https://www.theepochtimes.com/dr-scott-atlas-on-vaccine-mandates-for-children-natural-immunity-and-floridas-covid-19-surge_4013490.html

“To me, it’s unconscionable that a society uses its children as shields for adults. Children do not have a significant risk from this illness… Are we [as] a society, a civilization … going to inject our children with an experimental drug that they don’t have a significant benefit from, to shield ourselves?”
—Dr. Scott Atlas

In this episode, we sit down with public health policy expert Dr. Scott Atlas to discuss the ethics of vaccinating children, especially given that data has shown children do not significantly spread the virus compared to adults.

We also discuss the underlying reasons behind the recent COVID-19 surge in Florida as well as the efficacy of natural immunity.

Dr. Atlas is the author of “A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America,” which is set to be released on Nov. 23.

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MORE HEADLINES ON RITCHIE TORRES

Can You Be a Progressive and Support Israel? A Conversation with Bronx Democrat Ritchie Torres. Bari Weiss

By Ruth King (Edit) on May 19th, 2021

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/can-you-be-a-progressive-and-support?token=

Ritchie Torres is a freshman congressman representing New York’s 15th district. He grew up in a public housing project in the Bronx, brought up by a single mother who raised him, his sister, and his twin brother on minimum wage. Upon his swearing-in, Ritchie became the first openly gay Afro-Latin American member of Congress. He is a staunch progressive, and has been vocal about improving public housing, advocating for LGBT businesses, and addressing child poverty.

He is also an outspoken supporter of Israel, a position that 10 years ago wouldn’t have been notable, but in today’s progressive wing of the Democratic Party has made him a curiosity — sort of like a Trumper who doesn’t want a recount.

Rep. Torres’s position on Israel has made him a target on social media, where he has been smeared as a supporter of ethnic cleansing and genocide. It has also opened him up to criticism from his colleagues.

To me, he looks a bit like a single man standing alone against a cultural tsunami. Does he feel that way? I called Rep. Torres yesterday to find out.

Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BW: Last week you said: “I am here to affirm, as a member of Congress — one who intends to be here for a long time — that I have an unwavering commitment to both the sovereignty and security of Israel as a Jewish state.” That kind of statement used to be par for the course for Democratic politicians. That no longer seems to me to be the case. What happened?

RT: It feels like we are living through a tectonic shift. We’re increasingly living in a world where support for Israel as a Jewish state, support for the American Israeli relationship, support even for a two state solution, is becoming heresy. And BDS is in danger of becoming orthodoxy, particularly within progressive circles.

BW: Why has that view become heretical? How did we get to this point?
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‘Truth,’ as Well as Israel, Is ‘Under Siege’ From Hamas, Declares NY Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres in Solidarity Speech

By Ruth King (Edit) on May 14th, 2021

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/05/13/truth-as-well-as-israel-is-under-siege-from-hamas-declares-ny-democratic-rep-ritchie-torres-in-solidarity-speech/

Progressive Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York has delivered an impassioned defense of the State of Israel in the face of the escalating military threat from Hamas.

Speaking to a virtual UJA event on Wednesday night, the 33-year-old East Bronx native — whose 15th district includes the South Bronx and borders that of fellow Democrat and frequent Israel critic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — restated his “unwavering commitment to both the sovereignty and security of Israel as a Jewish State.”

Torres remarked that “what is under siege is not only Israel.”

He continued: “What is under siege is the truth itself. Circulating on social media is a vicious lie — a lie that deceptively reframes the terrorism of Hamas as self-defense and deceptively reframes the self-defense of Israel as terrorism. Increasingly, we seem to live in an Orwellian universe where the truth no longer matters.”

Torres — who has at times faced criticism from colleagues on the left of the Democratic Party because of his stalwart backing for Israel — then noted that “support for Israel, especially in moments like these, is not for the faint-hearted.”
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Rep. Elect Ritchie Torres, a Progressive Democrat, Rips AOC’s Israel Hating ‘Squad’

By Ruth King (Edit) on December 23rd, 2020

https://www.tuskerdaily.com/rep-elect-ritchie-torres-a-progressive-democrat-rips-aocs-israel-hating-squad/

Ritchie Torres may be a progressive Democrat, but he won’t be signing up with AOC and her band of mental midget misfits which Nancy Pelosi nicknamed the ‘Squad’.

Ritchie Torres, is going to Washington next month to represent the South Bronx in Congress.

But despite his being a Bernie Sanders loving Progressive Democrat, he says you won’t see him paling around with Democratic Socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib anytime soon.

Torres,32, cited his strong support for Israel as a primary distinction between ‘the Squad’ and true progressives like himself.

“I came to observe that there are activists who have a visceral hatred for Israel as though it were the root of all evil.

The act of singling out Israel as BDS [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] has done is the definition of discrimination.”

Torres, who has served on the New York City Council since 2013, says he was moved by trips to Israel in 2015 and 2017.

Biden exposes his dementia to the world By James A. Nollet

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/biden_exposes_his_dementia_to_the_world.

The week of the autumnal equinox in New York City is Gridlock Week because of all the nonstop, non-moving traffic jams caused by the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.  American presidents have long given speeches there during opening week, and this year was no exception, when President Biden dropped in to show the entire world what we have long known inside the United States — that he is suffering from dementia and diminishing mental capacity. 

New York’s clogged traffic woes reflect the mental state of New York’s and America’s president.

Biden cannot function without either a teleprompter or pre-printed cheat sheets, which tell him how to meet and greet his peers. 

As Andrea Widburg noted, Biden cannot even so much as say “hello” to Boris Johnson without reading it first from his cheat sheet.

This was likewise evident the day before when Biden met with the U.N. secretary-general.  Biden had a televised meet ‘n’ greet session with the secretary-general during which he only spoke for about two minutes on general themes, and couldn’t get through it without his cheat sheets.  Naturally, the secretary-general, being of sound mind and reasonably lucid, needed no such notes at all to make his own reply.

Biden made an incredible claim about climate change.

0:41 — … And dealing with the gravest threat to humanity we’ve ever seen which is the whole climate crisis we’re gonna we’re un we’re undergoing that can only be met with global solutions …

The remark is so stupid that it is actually obscene.

Civilization Requires Deterrence  Deterrence at home and abroad is now dangerously lost.  By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2021/09/22/civilization-requires-deterrence/

Deterrence is the ancient ability to scare somebody off from hurting you, your friends, or your interests—without a major war. 

Desire peace? Then be prepared for war. Or so the Romans believed.

It’s an easily understood concept in the abstract. But deterrence still remains a mystical quality in the concrete since it is only acquired with difficulty and yet easily forfeited. 

The tired democracies of the 1930s learned that lesson when they kept acquiescing to Hitler’s serial aggressions. 

Hitler’s Germany foolishly later attacked a far stronger Soviet Union in 1941, given Moscow’s lost deterrence after its lackluster performances in Poland and Finland, its pact with the Nazis, and its recent purges of its own officer corps. 

Deterrence is omnipresent and also applies well beyond matters of war and peace. The current crime wave of murder and violent assault in our major cities is the wage of loud efforts to defund the police and contextualize crimes as somehow society’s rather than the criminal’s fault. 

As a result, lawbreakers now believe there is a good chance that robbing people or hurting or killing them might result in monetary gain or at least bloody satisfaction. They no longer fear a likely sentence of 30 years in prison. So, they see little risk in hurting people. And innocents suffer.

With a border wall, an end to catch and release, and tough jawboning of the Mexican and Central American governments, a new American deterrent stance in 2019-20 discouraged once unstoppable waves of illegal immigrants. 

Northern bound migrants knew that even if they reached and crossed the border, there was a good chance all such effort would be for naught, given quick apprehension and deportation. 

So, in their rational calculations, illegal aliens waited at home for less deterrent times. And they found them when Joe Biden stopped construction on the wall, renewed catch and release, and eased pressures on Mexico to interrupt caravans headed northward. 

Abroad, Donald Trump restored the strategic deterrence lost by his predecessor.

Barack Obama had dismissed the murderous ISIS as “JVs”—and they thrived. He shrugged when China stole territory in the South China sea to build military bases. He dismantled missile defense in Europe to coax Vladimir Putin to behave during his own 2012 reelection campaign. 

Obama loudly announced redlines in Syria while never intending to enforce them. He gave the Taliban back their incarcerated terrorist leaders in exchange for the return of the American deserter Bowe Bergdahl. And he sent the Iranians nocturnal cash to coax them to conclude an appeasing Iran Deal. Aggression followed as U.S. deterrence eroded.

Even With Climate Change, the World Isn’t Doomed Humanity has overcome far greater problems before and can do so again.By Bjorn Lomborg

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-world-doomed-gdp-warming-earth-11632338084?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Editor’s note: As November’s global climate conference in Glasgow draws near, important facts about climate change don’t always make it into the dominant media coverage. We’re here to help. Each Thursday contributor Bjorn Lomborg will provide some important background so readers can have a better understanding of the true effects of climate change and the real costs of climate policy.

Young people across the world are terrified of climate change, according to a forthcoming Lancet study. More than 45% of people 16 to 25 in the 10 countries surveyed are so worried that it affects their daily life and functioning. Almost half of young Americans believe “humanity is doomed,” and two-thirds think “the future is frightening.” But while climate change is a problem, panic is unwarranted.

The data show that humanity has overcome much larger threats over the past century. In 1900, if humanity had gotten rid of air pollution—mostly indoor pollution caused by smoky fuels like wood and dung—the benefit would have been equivalent to global gross domestic product rising 23%. To a young audience, that might look like an insufficient measure of well-being, but higher GDP means better health, lower mortality, greater access to education and in general a better standard of living. By 2050 the problem of air pollution will be mostly solved. And that’s only one of the many issues humanity has shorn down over the last 100 years, according to data 21 top economists and I gathered.

The challenge climate change poses, both to the environment and society, looks rather small compared to those humanity has already met. Noble Prize-winning climate economist William Nordhaus has shown that a 6.3-degree Fahrenheit rise in world temperatures by 2100—which is probable if policy makers do little to stop climate change—would cost only 2.8% of global GDP a year. The United Nations’ latest estimate puts it even lower at 2.6% of GDP for a 6.6-degree Fahrenheit increase.

Biden’s Border Botch Is No Accident

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/23/bidens-border-botch-is-no-accident/

The massive influx of illegal immigrants on our nation’s southern border almost defies description. The Biden administration has actively sought this disaster in a bid to undermine the integrity of both our border and our nation’s rule of law. President Joe Biden is responsible for this human crisis, and should answer for it.

We’re already seeing 200,000 or so people each month reach our borders. But things have changed dramatically.

After the July 22 assassination of Haiti’s president, some 15,000 Haitians showed up, many in Del Rio, Texas, swelling the ranks of the thousands of Central Americans and Mexican citizens already at the border waiting to come across. Another 20,000 or so Haitians might soon be on their way from South America, according to NBC News.

Meanwhile, thousands more have already been released into the U.S., with little screening, while just a relative handful have been sent back to their country, according to news reports.

As the Associated Press noted:

Many Haitian migrants in Del Rio are being released in the United States, according to two U.S. officials, undercutting the Biden administration’s public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion to Haiti.

Haitians have been freed on a ‘very, very large scale’ in recent days, one official said Tuesday. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter and thus spoke on condition of anonymity, put the figure in the thousands.

AP adds that “Criteria for deciding who is flown to Haiti and who is released in the U.S. are a mystery,” but it’s really not. The administration has decided not to send families with children, or children alone, back to Haiti. So they’re appearing in droves.

This may just be the tip of a very large iceberg. Biden’s plans include doubling the current level of refugees admitted each year to 125,000.

10% of Biden’s Afghanistan Aid Will Go To Taliban Why are American taxpayers funding the Taliban? Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/10-bidens-afghanistan-aid-will-go-taliban-daniel-greenfield/

Deborah Lyons, the head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, met with Sirajuddin Haqqani, a wanted terrorist with the Haqqani Network, a Taliban component with close ties to Al Qaeda.

Lyons had served as Canada’s ambassador in Kabul when the Taliban carried out a suicide bombing against a Canadian embassy convoy. Lyons put up a monument to the security contractors who were wounded and killed, but they sued after being abandoned afterwards.

Sirajuddin Haqqani is a wanted terrorist with a $10 million FBI reward on his head.

“It is impossible to provide humanitarian assistance inside Afghanistan without engaging with the de facto authorities,”  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned.

The de facto authorities being the Islamic terrorists of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The official word is that the Taliban won’t stop the UN humanitarian operations. Whether or not the Taliban will refrain from taxing the UN’s proposed $1.2 billion aid boom is another question.

Without waiting for that question to be settled, Biden has not only kicked in $64 million, but the Treasury Department issued a license for Afghanistan aid which states that it, “will continue to support the continuity of the U.S. government’s important humanitarian-related work in the region”, while claiming that “we have not reduced sanctions pressure on Taliban leaders or the significant restrictions on their access to the international financial system.”

The Taliban and most “humanitarian” groups in Afghanistan are using the Islamic Hawala system which enables international finance and massive terrorist fundraising at the same time.

And “humanitarian aid” is one of the best ways to fund Islamic terrorists. The Taliban impose an Islamic tithe which American taxpayers will end up paying once the millions in aid arrive.

The Squalid “Squad” Is Trying to Destroy Bipartisan Support for Israel by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17783/squad-israel-bipartisan-support

The fact that the Squad picked on the Iron Dome to make its stand against Israel is significant. The Iron Dome is a system developed jointly by the United States and Israel that is purely defensive. It does not kill, injure, or threaten anyone. It only protects civilians against war crimes committed by terrorist groups that direct lethal rockets against innocent civilians.

The fact that the Squad would try to deny Israel the right to defend its civilians speaks volumes about the lack of morality and decency among Squad members and their allies.

It follows from this effort that the Squad will oppose any and all aid to Israel, including protecting its innocent civilians against Iran’s nuclear threat. The obvious goal of Squad members is to deny Israel the right to defend itself against aggression. At least one of its members has denied that Israel has the right to exist.

These bigoted actions directly violate the platform of the Democratic Party (as well as that of the Republican Party). The Democratic Party must decide whether it will become captive to its most extreme wing or whether it will marginalize these radicals who are not only anti-Israel but, in many ways, anti-American. They are intolerant of dissent and due process for those who disagree with them. They are anti-police, anti-military, and anti-free market economy.

The time has come, indeed it is long past, for the Democratic leadership to stand strong against the anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-decency squalid Squad. The leadership can no longer stand idly by the bigotry of their members. If they persist in tolerating the intolerable, they will lose the support of the all-important mainstream voters.

The “Squad” is a small group of radical members of the U.S. House of Representatives who run for Congress under the banner of the Democratic Party but do not reflect its mainstream policies. They represent niche districts that are not typical of the Democratic base. They could not be elected in any statewide race, because they lack widespread support. They were nominated because of low turnout in primaries and were elected because their districts are overwhelmingly Democrat. They are fringe Democrats who should not have influence beyond their districts. But the House leadership of the Democratic Party has exaggerated their significance and given them more power than they deserve.

We May Have Left Afghanistan, Mr. President, But We Are Still at War by Pete Hoekstra

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17784/left-afghanistan-still-at-war

I never liked that term, “war on terror.” Terrorism is a tactic; it is not the enemy we fought every day. The term has done more to confuse us than enlighten us.

[O]ne can see why the phrase “war on terror” became the widely accepted nomenclature. It was neutral. Gone would be the difficult references connecting the terrorist movement to Islam and Muslims. The need to define good Muslims versus bad/extremist Muslims would be eliminated. We would just paper over the difficult discussions that needed to take place but did not.

The terrorists, and their Islamist apologists in the West, actually used our response to their benefit. They widely labeled those who tried to connect al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to Islamic dogma as Islamophobes and anti-Muslim.

It did not matter that the terrorists invoked Quranic passages as justification, or that groups such as ISIS and others explicitly state that their ultimate objective is a global Muslim state governed by religious law.

President Biden can say what he wants but that does not mean it is so. The other side has a say in this. And as we saw as we were leaving Kabul, the jihadists spoke clearly, they are still at war with us. If the crack team of foreign advisers that the president is relying on, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, advised him that the United States is no longer at war, the world is in serious trouble.

On Tuesday, Joe Biden presented his first United Nations General Assembly speech as president. I labored through almost 32 minutes of the speech when a most profound announcement was proclaimed: “I stand here today for the first time in 20 years with the United States not at war.”

It was an odd boast, considering how the United States left Afghanistan and what it means for the future.

Passing of a great and fearless American mind Angelo Codevilla, strategist and implacable critic of the US establishment, dead at 78 in a California car accident David Goldman

https://asiatimes.com/author/spengler/

 On September 20, I was sitting across a table from the foreign editor of a European news publication. Demons must have lurked and listened to our conversation. “Is there any American thinker who you find fresh and challenging?” the journalist asked me.

“You mean apart from Angelo Codevilla?,” I returned. A traditional Jew from the Old Country would have said “Angelo Codevilla, kein hora,” or “keine ayin hara,” a mix of Yiddish and Hebrew that means “no Evil Eye.” It is an imprecation against Fate’s envy of the truly gifted.

The next day Angelo was dead at age 78, reportedly run down by a drunk driver.

There were two former senior intelligence officials who knew enough where enough bodies were buried in the Global War on Terror to scare the American Intelligence establishment. Lieutenant General Michael Flynn was one, and the spooks got to him within days of his appointment as Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser.

Angelo Codevilla was the other. Flynn is a working-class kid who worked his way up the chain of command from reserve officer training at Providence College, while Angelo was an Italian-born connoisseur of Western culture, multi-lingual and the master of many disciplines, fiercely independent and contemptuous of attempts to co-opt him.

Codevilla was an expert on Afghanistan starting in 1979, as chief of staff for the Senate Intelligence Committee, before the CIA could find the benighted country on a map. He knew that the Global War on Terror was a scam, a goof, a lavishly-funded reality show – and he told the world what he knew.

Here is what he wrote on August 24 in his last posting at The American Mind, the opinion site of the Claremont Institute where Angelo was a senior fellow: