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Ruth King

MBC-TV Drama Series Umm Haroun Is Rocking The Arab World Unprecedented: Jews presented as victims of Arab intolerance. Joseph Puder *****

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/mbc-tv-drama-series-umm-haroun-rocking-arab-world-joseph-puder/

For over a century, ever since the Zionist project began, Jews have been vilified in the Arab press as usurpers of Palestine. There were also the religious aspects in the condemnation of Jews as evildoers and enemies of the prophet Mohammad. Even after the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, the Egyptian media viciously portrayed Jews using such old medieval calumnies as accusations that Jews kill children to use their blood on Passover matzos. Israel’s peace with Jordan in 1994 did not do much to improve how the Jordanian people saw Israel and Jews. In short, the governments of both Egypt and Jordan failed to prepare their people for peaceful people to people relationships.

The recent Abrahamic peace treaties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain signed in the White House, with the President Donald Trump serving as the facilitator, has brought on a refreshing air of amity and positivity. It is a more real peace that is not just between governments, but rather has the people on sides involved, as well as in business relations, and two-way tourism. The Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC), an Emirati-Saudi media conglomerate based in Dubai has presented a drama series called “Umm Haroun,” aired during month of the Ramadan fast, a major TV audience occasion, especially with the coronavirus keeping many people at home, thus increasing the watching audience. The series explores the Jewish roots in the Gulf, and the historic ties Jewish people have to the Arab Gulf region.

Cancel Culture Spells the Demise of Academic Freedom When reasoned debate exits stage left. Lloyd Pettegrew

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/cancel-culture-spells-demise-academic-freedom-lloyd-pettegrew/

Many academics of the libertarian or conservative bent have learned from experience that it is better to keep one’s thoughts and voice to oneself. We self-sensor reluctantly and only out of necessity. In these troubled academic times rank no longer has its privileges regarding first Amendment rights on campus. Failure to follow publicly the progressive academic orthodoxy can bring one trouble in the form of being canceled.

Before canceling became de rigueur on campus and throughout the academy, opposition was largely confined to voicing opinions in the academic public square. With the rise in the popularity and power of neo-Marxism, canceling has become the new academic armament. Neo-Marxism emanated from Marxist theory in the 1970’s and 80’s as a framework for explaining the repressive functions of the capitalist state; its adherents could be found in political science, philosophy and public policy. Fifty years later it has birthed young scholars from economics to medicine and the STEM subjects, who think nothing of censoring or discarding people and texts they find objectionable.

The Neo-Marxist cancel culture has been most readily demonstrated in the violent protests against visiting campus speakers like Charles Murray, Christina Hoff Summers, Ben Shapiro, Heather Mac Donald and myriad others. Even in academic meetings like the American Political Science Association, U.C. Berkeley Law Prof. John Yoo, who had served in the George Bush Justice Department, was disrupted while speaking. As contradictory as it may seem, even an ACLU executive was prevented from speaking at two different university gatherings.

Election Day Draws Near, and the Dice Are Rolling And a nation is at stake. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/election-day-draws-near-and-dice-are-rolling-bruce-thornton/

In a week America goes to the polls, and by normal standards Donald Trump should be reelected, whether in a squeaker like 1968, when Richard Nixon won by half a million votes; or a landslide like 1972, when he beat left-leaning George McGovern by 18 million votes and won every state except Massachusetts.  

But these are not normal times. Addled by the Trump-hatred virus, the Dems have been taken over by its progressive-socialist wing, a possibility that at the beginning of the year during the primaries had spooked the Democrat establishment as it had in the 2016 election when it undermined Bernie Sanders. They knew that such a leftward lurch goes before an electoral fall. Now it seems they’ve put all their chips on an old white guy with little to show for nearly half a century in “public service” other than a family with more money than his Senate salary can possibly account for.

Perhaps the Pelosi-Schumer axis thinks that if Biden’s elected they can control Joe and their Sandernista base, and tone down its left-wing utopian wish-list of the Green New Deal, free college tuition for all, the elimination of carbon-based energy, punitive tax-rates, a return to a foreign policy of appeasement, an increased government role in health care, and policies like reparations and “police reform” based on preposterous, racialist ideas like “systemic racism” and “implicit bias.” Most average Democrats would be content just to return to the Obama days of redistribution at home, and retreat abroad.

Covid Winter Death rates have fallen sharply amid better care and treatments.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coping-with-the-covid-winter-11603840305?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Perhaps you’ve heard winter is coming. Or as Joe Biden warned last week about a third virus wave, “We’re about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter.” He’s playing up the worst case as the election nears, so some context is in order.

Virus cases are increasing, but this is inevitable as cooler weather arrives and Americans go indoors. Cases have also been climbing across Europe, in some countries more than in the U.S. But the good news is that America is better prepared to handle another virus surge, and progress toward a vaccine continues.***

The seven-day U.S. rolling case average has nearly doubled from the recent low in mid-September. Cases are more geographically dispersed than in the spring and summer, rising even in states with strict restrictions and mask mandates. This includes New York and its neighbors whose governors were hailed for supposedly controlling the virus. The increase has been most acute in upper Midwest states that weren’t hit as hard earlier. Some of the increase is due to more testing, which is detecting more asymptomatic cases.

Most concerning are hospitalizations, which are up by about 40% since mid-September though are still 30% or so below spring and summer peaks. Most hospitals have ample capacity to treat virus patients while continuing elective procedures, which were stopped during the spring. Covid patients occupy 13% of hospital beds in Wisconsin, 15% in South Dakota and 15% in North Dakota. According to North Dakota’s virus data dashboard, 45% of non-ICU hospital patients classified “with Covid” are admitted for other reasons and test positive for the virus.

Supreme Court Ballot Wisdom It isn’t partisan to rule that a state’s voting deadline should stand.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-ballot-wisdom-11603840218?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

The campaign to stigmatize the Supreme Court is already under way, even before new Justice Amy Coney Barrett hears a case. Witness the media hyperventilating after the Justices ruled 5-3 late Monday that Wisconsin’s Nov. 3 ballot deadline must remain in place.

The order sustained an appellate-court ruling that had halted a federal judge’s intrusion saying ballots mailed on time could be counted even if they arrived six days late. The judge claimed Covid-19 as the excuse, but Badger State law says absentee ballots must arrive by Election Day.

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh wrote opinions that should help educate lower-court judges who think they can rewrite state election law on election eve. Justice Kavanaugh cited the Court’s precedents that “recognize a basic tenet of election law: When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road should be clear and settled.”

Justice Gorsuch added that Wisconsin has gone to extraordinary lengths to take account of Covid, including sending all registered voters an absentee-ballot application and return envelope in the summer that they have been able to return since September

If Wisconsin’s Nov. 3 deadline can be thrown out due to Covid and despite the many avenues for casting a vote, Justice Gorsuch wrote, then “what about the identical deadlines in 30 other States?” Why bump the deadline six days and not 10 days? Other judges, he continued, might well “unfurl the precinct maps and decide whether States should add polling places, revise their hours, rearrange the voting booths,” and so forth.

America on the Precipice – November 7, 2020 By Rachel Ehrenfeld ( Published July 7, 2020

https://acdemocracy.org/america-on-the-precipice-november-7-2020/

Is the United States prepared for the aftermath of the upcoming Presidential election? Imagine this scenario, bearing in mind that all of its elements are eminently plausible.

On the morning of November 5, 2020, the election results are inconclusive, and neither candidate has conceded. Remarkably, most public polling over the past six months failed to predict this outcome. Either a large number of voters kept their preference to themselves or lied to the pollsters.

Substantiated reports of errors and blunders in tallying ballots and evidence of widespread mail-in voters’ fraud, lead both parties to challenge the results before the Supreme Court, which invalidates the election. A new election day has yet to be announced.

Conflicting disinformation campaigns flood traditional and social media, most of which are controlled by the Left. They are spreading falsehoods and fake news, including disinformation spawned by U.S. enemies, to further confuse and incite large segments of the population, especially the young. Real and fake images of clashes between law enforcement and rioters increase racial tension, goading the public into arming themselves against the police and causing more violent outbursts. 

Donald Trump is Poised to Become Among the Most Transformative Presidents in American History By Steve McCann

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/10/donald_trump_is_poised_to_become_among_the_most_transformative_presidents_in_american_history.html

The nation stands on the cusp of the third and perhaps most notable political realignment in the past 160 years, as those on both sides of the political spectrum recognize that the 2020 election has evolved into a watershed moment in American history.  Since 2016, the Ruling Class has recognized the existential threat Donald Trump poses to them.  The power structure of the Ruling Class and the objectives of the left have been upended by him and his ongoing transformation of the Republican Party, threatening their status and sinecures. The Democrat party’s leftist political allies have acknowledged that he is a dire threat to their grand scheme of radically transforming the United States

This cabal knows 2020 is their last chance to take advantage of what remains of the old Democrat coalition in order to seize the reins of power in near perpetuity.  Another four years of a Trump Administration and a renewed and unabashedly populist/nationalist Republican Party that will be the home for the middle and working classes, regardless of race or ethnicity, will set back the machinations of the Ruling Class and the Left for generations.  

Over the past four years, this reality has been the catalyst for uncontrolled hysteria, mainstream media fabrications, unverified and oftentimes unverifiable false accusations and Democrat congressional overkill directed at Donald Trump and the working/middle class coalition he has been constructing.  The ruling elites coupled with their ally of convenience, the radicalized American left, have been panicked into believing that they must to do everything possible, including election fraud, to defeat Donald Trump before he fully succeeds in the political realignment of the parties.  However, they erroneously believe this realignment will cease once President Trump is no longer in the Oval Office.

No Sanity, No Kumbaya, No Quarter Peter Smith

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/10/no-sanity-no-kumbaya-no-quarter/

“Perhaps once there was a possibility of civil intercourse with those on the Left but no longer, not with the crazies in full command of what laughably sees itself as the ‘progressive’ side of politics. Gender-confused men competing against women, renewables rorters as prophets of green salvation, foes of free speech — there can be no common ground with that lot.”

I briefly caught the Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey being interviewed on Fox News the other day. Heard him say that whoever won the election he hoped Americans would come together. He seemed from the brief bit I saw to be much less radically progressive than his peers. But he’s obviously a dreamer. There is no coming together. There is no possible rapprochement between the loonies that now occupy the political Left and sensible people. As a sensible person myself, or so I like to think, let me make my position crystal clear by way of illustrations.

Last week on the Alan Jones Show, Mark Latham revealed instructional videos teaching teachers in NSW how to corrupt the minds of schoolchildren by teaching them that their sexual identity is a “social construct.” Hey, your willies or vaginas are just in your minds, don’t you know? Moreover, disgustingly, teachers are being advised to keep any expressed gender confusion among little Bills and Jills — and why wouldn’t they be confused attending school these days — under wraps from their parents, lest those old fogies don’t understand.

I have nothing in common with people who perpetrate or support this kind of child abuse and I have no intention of ever giving them the time of day. Where to go now? There are so many examples. Let’s go to the really inane, to rich American footballer Colin Kaepernick and his latest delusional call for the abolition of police forces and prisons: “Another world is possible, a world grounded in love, justice, and accountability, a world grounded in safety and good health, a world grounded in meeting the needs of people. Abolition now.”

It is hard to know where to start in commenting on this utopian tripe. Luckily, I don’t have to, the wonderfully sensible and articulate Heather Mac Donald did it on the Tucker Carlson Show. I will pick out just a few phrases but you should, let me reiterate should, watch the whole 4½ minute clip. She is wonderfully direct and uncompromising. Male conservative commentators could learn a thing or two.

Trump vs. Biden: A Rundown By Victor Davis Hanson ******

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/trump-vs-biden-a-rundown/

Foreign policy, domestic policy, character, transparency.

Biden so far has issued no substantive critique of Trump’s foreign policy other than banalities that Trump’s comportment and unpredictability have offended allies and tarnished America’s reputation.

But who exactly, according to Biden, is offended?

China? Russia? Iran? Turkey? And all those states that, given their records, should be offended?

Or are the aggrieved Arab World, Israel, Brazil, Poland, and India, angry at Trump’s outreach to them all?

Most likely, Biden believes that German-controlled Western Europe rightly loathes Trump.

It certainly may. But Europe tends to be fond of charismatic would-be-intellectual presidents such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who wax eloquently about cooperation rather than upping Western defenses in the manner of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

But, more specifically, where exactly would Biden fault Trump’s record abroad?

Would Biden seek a reset or detente with China? Would he stop efforts to force China to adhere to international trading accords or make China come clean about its role in the origins and spread of COVID-19?

More specifically, might Biden fault Trump for selling lethal weapons to Ukraine when previously he apparently thought that move was too provocative? Would Biden have forgone killing Qasem Soleimani and Abu Baghdadi, given his own prior advice to not go after Osama bin Laden?

What exactly bothers Biden about current foreign policy? Restoring close relations with Israel after the Obama-administration ostracism?

The Left Doesn’t Fear Amy Coney Barrett, It Fears the Constitution By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/the-left-doesnt-fear-amy-coney-barrett-it-fears-the-constitution/

The rest is noise.

Nothing threatens the progressive project more than the existence of a Supreme Court that adheres to the Constitution. It’s really that simple.

That’s what the tantrum over Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation is all about. The notion that the same Democrats who shelved the judicial filibuster and now threaten to destroy the separation of powers with a Court-packing revenge scheme — the same people, incidentally, so fond of smear-drenched confirmation hearings — are sticklers for process or decorum is simply ludicrous.For one thing, no norms have been undone by the confirmation of Barrett. If Democrats won a Senate majority in 2016, Merrick Garland would already be ensconced in the Supreme Court, election or no election. Many of the same Democrats now feigning outrage over Barrett’s confirmation, including Joe Biden, argued back then that it was the constitutional duty of the Senate to take up a vote. Our living constitution apparently offers contradicting directions from one election to the next.

If Trump had nominated Garland to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Democrats wouldn’t have any problem placing him on the Court — not even on November 2. Liberals act as if they are imbued with a theological right to dictate not only the terms, but also the nominees, of confirmation hearings whether they win or lose elections.

And when you’re under the impression that the system exists solely to facilitate your partisan agenda, something will seem “broken” every time you lose. When Barack Obama was unable to pass his agenda after 2010, the system suffered from “dysfunction.” How many times did we hear that term? But now that Democrats are in the Senate minority, employing the very same tools to slow the president, we must “fix” the Electoral College, the Senate, and, most recently, the Supreme Court. If Democrats win back the presidency in 2020, the opposition will no longer be “resisting,” it will be “obstructing.” The filibuster will need fixing again. The media will again obsess over the problem of “gridlock.” History’s trajectory arcs left, and everything else is just an impediment.