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Ruth King

2020 Election Will Be a Contest of the Angry By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/2020-election-contest-of-the-angry/

It is no longer really about Biden and Trump.

The old 2020 election was supposed to be about many familiar issues. It is not anymore.

Up until now, the candidates themselves would supposedly be the story in November. The Left had cited Trump’s tweets and erratic firings as windows into his dark soul.

The Right had replied that an addled and befuddled Joe Biden was not really a candidate at all.

Instead, he was a mere facsimile who would have to be carried to the Election Day on the shoulders of the Democratic Party, only shortly to fade away. Then a radical vice president soon could implement a hard-left agenda by succession what she could not through election.

Issues themselves are no longer likely to decide the election either. Not long ago progressives argued that the miracle Trump economy was in shambles, done in by plague, quarantine, and riot.

They thundered that it was what you would expect from Trump’s innate chaos — a mess that would have to be invented if it had not existed.

The Right had countered that deregulation, energy development, tax reform, and reindustrialization that made America Great would make American Great Again.

For all of 2019 and 2020, Democrats had claimed that a calm abroad would return with a Biden win. They talked of reestablishing the influence of post-war American-led diplomacy, soft power, traditional alliances, transnational organizations, and the United Nations.

Minnesota State Rep: Antifa and Muslim Groups Plan to ‘Police Minneapolis Under Muslim Rule’ Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/minnesota-state-rep-antifa-and-muslim-groups-plan-robert-spencer/#.XvOMjgPfd0A.email

‘It would have sounded farfetched just weeks ago. It doesn’t anymore. C.B.

As the city of Minneapolis moves to dismantle its police force, Minnesota state Rep. Steve Green on Tuesday stated the obvious that virtually everyone else has been tiptoeing around and pretending isn’t there: “What you’re looking at, in my humble opinion, is communism moving into Minneapolis and St. Paul.” And not just Communism, but the Leftist/Islamic alliance. Green asserted that Antifa and Muslim organizations plan to “police Minneapolis under Muslim rule.” Those who scoff at such a notion simply aren’t paying attention to recent developments.

The Minneapolis City Council voted two weeks ago to abolish the city’s police force. Its plans beyond that have so far been sketchy, but something is going to have to be put in place as an alternative to the police. The New York Times noted that “many have called for relying more on self-policing by the community, in the way attendees often do at events like music festivals, with the police stepping in only when a true emergency arises. Some cited as an example how, in the days after the killing of Mr. Floyd, teams made up of dozens of members of the American Indian Movement patrolled streets and directed traffic in the Little Earth housing community in Minneapolis.”

If members of the local community end up policing Minneapolis, what might that look like? Back in 2016, a series of Minneapolis Muslims in man-on-the-street interviews stated matter-of-factly that they preferred Islamic law over American law. We have seen Sharia patrols in Germany, Britain, and even New York City, where the Muslim Community Patrol (MCP) is decked out in uniforms that strong resemble New York Police Department uniforms, and drives cars carefully designed to look like NYPD cars, to enforce “fundamentals of the Sharia.”

Muslim leader Siraj Wahhaj explained what that meant: “The mosques need protection and the MCP cars can help stop people who were not following the rules and regulations of the sharia, doing what they’re not supposed to be doing, but still doing it.” According to a Muslim involved with the MCP, this would involve stopping “Muslim women being out after dark, Muslim men hanging out in the corners doing dope, Muslims drinking liquor,” and enforcing, “basically, the fundamentals of the Sharia.”

Palestinians: Is It Really about ‘Annexation’? by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16147/palestinians-annexation

It is dead wrong to assume that if Israel abandons its plan, most Muslims would give up their desire to destroy Israel and replace it with an extremist Iran-style Islamic state.

[Islamic officials] are now calling on Palestinians to launch terror attacks against Israel, not because of the “annexation” plan, but in order to drive the Jews out of the “Palestinian Arab Islamic lands.”

Those who are pressuring Israel not to proceed with the “annexation” plan need to hear what Islamic leaders are saying, day and night: that the conflict is not about Jewish settlements or the Jordan Valley, but the “big settlement” called Israel.

As far as Palestinian Islamic religious clerics are concerned, Israel’s intention to extend its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, particularly Jewish settlements and the strategic Jordan Valley, means very little: to them Jews “have no right to Palestinian, Arab and Islamic land.”

The position of the Islamic figures contradicts the Palestinian Authority’s claim that the annexation plan would “destroy the two-state solution and any chance of a peace process with Israel.”

The picture Palestinian Authority officials are painting is that the Israeli annexation of any part of the West Bank is the one and only obstacle to regional peace, security and stability. According to these officials, the Israeli plan would deprive the Palestinians of their right to establish an independent and sovereign state on the pre-1967 armistice lines.

A large group of Palestinian Islamic scholars and clerics, however, evidently disagree with the Palestinian Authority’s claim.

On June 21, the Association of Palestine Scholars held a meeting in the Gaza Strip to discuss the Israeli plan. The meeting was attended by several Islamic religious judges representing the Supreme Council of Sharia Judiciary, senior officials of the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs, academics from several Islamic colleges and universities, as well as jurists who issue rulings on Islamic law (sharia).

How to Deal with China?: “Made in America” by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16153/how-to-deal-with-china

China’s threats to punish Australia seem to be part of an increasingly bullying, aggressive approach by Chinese officials, not only toward Australia, but also toward India, and at least four other countries in the region: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Japan, as well as islands in the Pacific.

The only real solution to China’s duplicity and aggression would be for Western nations — all 186 nations that were harmed by China’s lies during the Covid-19 pandemic — to cut all ties with China, to start a firm policy of “Made in America” or “Made Anywhere But China” to show a willing independence from a country that openly aspires to dominate the world.

China — perhaps hoping that everyone is sufficiently distracted by the virus the Chinese Communist Party unleashed on it, as well as by the “free gifts” from China that, in their trade-off for freedom, promise to be fatal — is clearly on the march. The world might remember that it would have been so much easier to stop Hitler before he crossed the Rhine.

China’s Communist Party leadership was not pleased to hear a call from Australia for a global inquiry into the origin of the Covid-19 virus and China’s possible role in it.

Australia further requested that the investigation be conducted outside the purview of the World Health Organization (WHO), which had had been spreading lies and disinformation about the transmissibility of the virus. China seems to have decided that Australia’s insistence on an independent study was a violation of the spirit of their bilateral relationship. Indeed, for the past three decades, the Australian economy has been buoyed by expanding commercial ties with China. This relationship has now soured, and China has been threatening Australia with economic warfare unless it reconsiders its inquisitive foreign policy.

Making good on its threat, China slapped an 80% tariff on Australian barley and has threatened to boycott Australian wine and beef. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne has rejected any such attempts at economic coercion.

Netanyahu Must Stay Strong on Sovereignty as Pressure Builds Israel only has one option. Caroline Glick

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/netanyahu-must-stay-strong-sovereignty-pressure-caroline-glick/

Over the past week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has changed his mind countless times regarding how and when he will implement Israel’s sovereignty plan in Judea and Samaria in consonance with President Donald Trump’s vision for peace. Netanyahu’s vacillations are clearly a product of the immense pressure being exerted on him to cancel the plan to apply Israeli law to the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley and turn his back on Trump’s Middle East peace plan.

This is a shame. It is also absurd. When we consider the source of much of the pressure—and the reasons it is being exerted—it becomes glaringly clear that the critics and opponents must be ignored. Their actions are not being taken out of conviction so much as hostility or distress. Israel must cast aside their hectoring and pressure and implement the sovereignty plan with all due haste.

Consider one of the most talked-about recent efforts to pressure the Israeli public and Netanyahu to set aside the sovereignty plan and spurn Trump.

Last Friday, United Arab Emirates Ambassador in Washington Yousef Al Otaiba published an article in Yediot Ahronot. Otaiba threatened that if Israel implements its sovereignty plan in Judea and Samaria, the prospect of normalized ties with the Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf will fall by the wayside.

The media played up the author. But it quickly became clear that the idea of publishing the article in Hebrew in an Israeli newspaper didn’t come from Otaiba. Hours after the morning papers arrived, the media reported that it was Democratic mega-donor Haim Saban’s idea to have Otaiba publish his threatening article in Yediot.

Terry Bishop :The Voice of Jihad Will be Heard Loud and Clear in Afghanistan Nothing says peace more than a group of martyrdom seekers and suicide bombers.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/voice-jihad-will-be-heard-loud-and-clear-terry-bishop/

On the same day senior Taliban leaders could be seen in a video celebrating dozens of “various martyrdom seeking groups” including suicide bombers, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was telling the U.S. State Department and reporters that he “[believes] we are in a more hopeful moment that validates our approach [regarding the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan].” He was “optimistic that finally we are moving forward to the start of the intra-Afghan negotiations.”

Apparently, the Taliban defines negotiation quite differently than Khalilzad is willing to admit. Per his own words in the recent special briefing, he is clearly wrong — either by virtue of ignorance or misinformation — on the Taliban’s commitment to break ties with al-Qaeda (and a conglomerate of Deobandi-linked terrorist groups in the region, for that matter). What is more, he has also ignored their means for preparing for peace. After all, nothing says peace more than a group of martyrdom seekers and suicide bombers.

On June 1, 2020 — the same day of Khalilzad’s lofty statements about the organization — a near 35-minute video entitled “Victorious Force (1)” was released by the Taliban, highlighting some of their various methods for engaging in negotiation with the Afghan government that are fearfully ignored by a blinded special envoy. “We are in a good place,” he contends. However, the martyrdom groups participating in jihadi training at Al-Fateh Camp seem to say otherwise.

The video, which includes English subtitles, can be viewed in its entirety on Voice of Jihad, the official website of the Afghan Taliban. It was produced by Al-Hijra Studio, part of the Audio & Visual Sector of the Multimedia Department of the Commission for Cultural Affairs of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The short film begins with the recitation and English translation of the Quran, chapter 8, Surah al-Anfal (The Spoils of War), verse 60: “And prepare against them whatever you are capable of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy.”

Sowing the Sixties Winds, Reaping Today’s Whirlwind Today’s disorder reflects just how successful the leftist “long march through the institutions” has been. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/sowing-sixties-winds-reaping-todays-whirlwind-bruce-thornton/

From one perspective, the surreal absurdity of the current protests, vandalism, and riots is not even close to the disruption and mayhem of the political violence in the Sixties and Seventies. We have not yet seen the kidnappings, murders of judges, and scores of bombings that roiled that era. In 1967 alone there were 159 riots, and in the Seventies 14 people were killed and 600 wounded by politically motivated bombings.

But what’s going on today is more dangerous, for the ideologies driving the disorder reflect just how successful the leftist “long march through the institutions” has been at corrupting American education and culture over the last half a century. As a result, ideas and behaviors that by consensus were out of bounds then, have now been normalized and abetted by civic leaders and politicians, as well as popular culture, schools, and even sports.

I spent the Seventies in college and graduate school, so I had a front-row seat for the “long march.” In the early years there were, of course, radical professors who opposed the war in Vietnam and hated free-market capitalism. They preached abandoning the bourgeoisie virtues like self-restraint of desires and appetites, especially of sex. Those virtues were redefined as tools of political oppression. As cultural Marxist Herbert Marcuse put it, “The civilized morality is reversed by harmonizing instinctual freedom and order: liberated from the tyranny of repressive reason, the instincts tend toward free and lasting existential relations––they generate a new reality principle.”

Such opinions were a minority among an otherwise liberal faculty. But as the decade progressed, they steadily became more mainstream. One reason is that a consumer-driven economy had long found sex to be a great marketing tool, and impulsive behavior to be good for business. And so this corrosive politicizing of promiscuity was promoted by many big businesses.

WHY SEATTLE IS IN TROUBLE-OPEN THE BOOKS

Only in Seattle do the tree trimmers make $160,000 per year!

Today, our investigation is an Editor’s Pick at Forbes: Why Seattle And Their Police Department Is In Trouble.

Our auditors dug into how Seattle is actually spending taxpayer dollars. We found: 

tree trimmers lopped off $160,604
the chief librarian made $197,704
electricians earned $271,070
electrical lineworkers made $307,387
police officers earned up to $414,543 

Last year, 601 city employees out-earned the mayor ($199,593), and the mayor out-earned 49 out of 50 state governors (top pay: $202,000).  

The city council member ($131,336) leading the charge to defund the police made more than the members of the New York general assembly — the most highly compensated state legislature in the country ($130,000). 

Read our breaking oversight piece at Forbes where we outline all the details. 

Falling COVID-19 Death Rates Are Even Smaller Than They Look

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/06/25/falling-covid-19-death-rates-are-even-smaller-than-they-look/
Once again, the U.S. is undergoing a media-driven COVID-19 scare after a “spike” in infections. But as we noted earlier this week, the number of cases depends on the amount of testing. The key gauge to watch is deaths. They’ve been falling since April, and there’s strong reason to believe they’re lower than the official count suggests.

The dreaded Wuhan virus is no doubt a nasty bug, worthy of our vigilance and ongoing concern. That said, its virulence, as measured by the daily number of deaths, appears to be waning, as the chart with this piece, courtesy of the COVID-19 Tracking Project of the Atlantic, clearly shows.

The average number of daily COVID-19 deaths on a weekly basis has fallen from a peak of just over 2,000 to 700 or so. That’s a roughly 65% decline. And it’s no fluke. The figure has been dropping steadily since April.

Hold on. That last number for June 23 on the chart shows a huge jump. Should we be worried? Is this the much-dreaded surge some have been talking up?

Apparently not. A big part of that one-time gain came from a revision by one state: Delaware.

As the Youyang Gu, an MIT data scientist who created the COVID 19-projections.com site, tweeted: “To put the increase in deaths in context, Delaware added 69 deaths today: ‘The revision came from identifying 67 deaths dating back to April.’ So if you take out those 67 deaths, the week-over-week deaths have not changed.”

Explosive New FBI Notes Confirm Obama Directed Anti-Flynn Operation By Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/24/explosive-new-fbi-notes-confirm-obama-directed-anti-flynn-operation/

Handwritten notes from fired former FBI agent Peter Strzok show that Obama himself directed key aspects of the campaign to target Flynn during a Jan. 5, 2017 meeting in the Oval Office.

Newly released notes confirm President Barack Obama’s key role in surveillance and leak operation against Michael Flynn, the incoming Trump administration national security adviser. The handwritten notes, which were first disclosed in a federal court filing made by the Department of Justice on Tuesday, show President Obama himself personally directed former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to investigate Flynn for having routine phone calls with a Russian counterpart. He also suggests they withhold information from President Trump and his key national security figures.

The handwritten notes from fired former FBI agent Peter Strzok appear to describe a Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting between Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Comey, Yates, and then-national security adviser Susan Rice. The meeting and its substance were confirmed in a bizarre Inauguration Day email Rice wrote to herself.

It was at this meeting, which was confirmed by testimony from Comey and Yates, that Obama gave guidance to key officials who would be tasked with protecting his administration’s utilization of secretly funded Clinton campaign research, which alleged Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, from being discovered or stopped by the incoming administration.