Emily Hewertson
@emilyhewertson
·
Jun 13
Guess whose photos are allowed to remain… First up, Hitler, the Nazi who sought to kill minority groups. Second up, we’ve got Stalin, whose evil regime killed millions. And thirdly, it’s Mussolini, dictator and leader of Italy’s Fascist Party… enough said. I despair.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/black-lives-matters-a-thing-of-the-left-anchored-on-a-cop-hate-strategy/
Back in 2016 my pal Anne Sorock of Frontier Lab (now the Frontier Center, on whose board I sit) conducted a study of Black Lives Matter activists titled “The Privileged and the Oppressed,” a deep-dive market-research investigation into how BLM was (is) at its essence conduit for what she called “Progressives’ latest narrative.” At the time of its release I wrote about the report in the hopes of alerting conservatives as to what was at stake with this organization, as to its tactics and goals, as to how it was to be a tool for the broader Left, as to what it would vilify as it sought its objective. It all bears repeating.
As to it being the edge of the Left’s wedge: Anne’s research concluded that BLM was a unique and powerful means — and most definitely not a fleeting opportunity — for a phalanx of causes to achieve political and cultural success. From the report’s introduction:
Black Lives Matter as a movement represents the hopes and dreams of leftist organizers who shared with us that, until now, they had never felt such a sense of hope and excitement that their goal – as one operative put it, “total social upheaval,” and “systemic change” – could be realized in their lifetime. From veteran agitators like the Weather Underground’s Bill Ayers to a new crop of social-media-wielding female and LGBTQ leaders, Black Lives Matter is encapsulating the hopes and dreams of multiple generations of progressives in a way, they say, no movement has before.
The three female founders of the movement have made it clear, and the message has seeded itself as far down the chain as the operatives we spoke with, that Black Lives Matter is the vessel through which all progressive causes can flow. LGBTQ, illegal immigration, abortion, and countless other causes are simmering just beneath the public face of the focus on police violence. Even police violence flows neatly, according to Black Lives Matter, into economic violence – wage issues, workers rights . . . The panoply of leftist groups come together under this banner.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-semitism-and-the-intellectuals-11592171963?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
George Eliot was at the peak of her renown in 1874 when John Blackwood, her publisher, learned that she was at work on “Daniel Deronda, ” a new novel. As a literary man, he was in thrall to her genius. As a businessman with an instinct for the market, he valued her passionately dedicated readership. But an early look at portions of her manuscript astonished and appalled him: Too much of it was steeped in sympathetic evocations of Jews, Judaism and what was beginning to be known as Zionism.
All this off-putting alien erudition struck him as certain to be more than merely unpopular. It was personally tasteless, it went against the grain of English sensibility, it was an offense to the reigning political temperament. It was, in our notorious idiom, politically incorrect. Blackwood was unquestionably a member of England’s gentlemanly intellectual elite. In recoiling from Eliot’s theme, he showed himself to be that historically commonplace figure: an intellectual anti-Semite.
Anti-Semitism is generally thought of as brutish, the mentality of mobs, the work of the ignorant, the poorly schooled, the gutter roughnecks, the torch carriers. But these are only the servants, not the savants, of anti-Semitism. Mobs execute, intellectuals promulgate. Thugs have furies, intellectuals have causes.
The Inquisition was the brainchild not of illiterates, but of the most lettered and lofty prelates. Goebbels had a degree in philology. Hitler fancied himself a painter and doubtless knew something of Dürer and da Vinci. Pogroms aroused the murderous rampage of peasants, but they were instigated by the cream of Russian officialdom. The hounding and ultimate expulsion of Jewish students from German universities was abetted by the violence of their Aryan classmates, but it was the rectors who decreed that only full-blooded Germans could occupy the front seats. Martin Heidegger, the celebrated philosopher of being and non-being, was quick to join the Nazi Party, and as himself a rector promptly oversaw the summary ejection of Jewish colleagues.
https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/13/scenes-from-the-sacking-of-america/
On June 9, I tweeted out the following:
Seattle’s East Precinct has fallen, as Chief #CarmenBest orders #SeattlePolice to evacuate. The occupiers, aka #PeacefulProtesters,” declare victory. “They’ve given us the precinct,” they boast. NOT EVEN IN #SouthAfrica:https://t.co/cdbI8UF7eQ
— ILANA Mercer (@IlanaMercer) June 9, 2020
A mere day on, and the City of Seattle was de facto occupied territory, fallen to the “peaceful protesters”—the same counterculture media darlings who’ve been sacking cities across America.
The rabble—Black Lives Matter sympathizers, which, as police arrest records show are almost entirely locals—were further roused by Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, formerly of Mumbai.
The pied piper Sawant led the “peace makers” to occupy City Hall in downtown Seattle, on Tuesday, June 10.
The altercation between Council Member Sawant and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan gives new meaning to the “broad” sweep of ideas in this dysfunctional city. Sawant, a socialist, called on Mayor Durkan, a progressive, to resign over abuse of power (what power?) and systemic racism (a meaningless abstraction). This, as the city was being sacked.
Surrender Monkeys
As of this writing, the Seattle Police have surrendered without defeat.
Seven blocks of downtown Seattle, renamed the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ), have been appropriated by the “Peaceful Ones,” with the imprimatur of the mayor and her police chief. Now loosed on the public, these buccaneering entrepreneurs are reported to have set up checkpoints to shake down residents who imagine they may come and go. Not in this satrapy!
On the positive side, Seattle now has that shithole-country vibrancy.
President of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, SPOG, penned an open letter to lunatic Mayor Durkan, pondering how he would fulfill his sworn oath of office to protect lives and property without so much as tear gas.
He got his answer. America got it, too. Across the United States, the message to law-abiding Americans from city, town, and county council members as well as other legislators came loud and clear: You’re on your own. Neither police nor politicians are coming to protect what’s left of your businesses or your banal, bourgeoisie little life.
Last I looked, there were 400,000 “guardian angels” in private security toiling to make up for the South African state’s failure to protect its people. Every year, millions in taxpayers’ money are forked out to private security firms in order to protect the new South Africa’s police stations. South Africa’s protectors, in other words, can’t protect themselves. Will Seattle’s neutered policemen be investigating this option? Is it time for them to cut the shafted taxpayers loose? Let us go private?
http://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
A new passive coronavirus vaccine prospect. (TY Janglo) Israeli researchers at Bar-Ilan University have identified short amino acid sequences (epitopes), that trigger an immune response to eliminate Covid-19. The discovery could lead to the development of a passive vaccine.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-researchers-on-road-to-new-covid-19-passive-vaccine-630988
Corona Data challenge. Sheba Medical Center – Israel’s largest hospital – has offered (non-personal) medical data on its 500+ recovered coronavirus patients to innovators, startups, defense companies and the IDF. They have been challenged to build the best artificial intelligence tool for saving lives in future virus outbreaks.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hospital-offers-up-data-for-shark-tank-style-contest-to-find-next-virus-advance/
Doctors, we have a problem. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) hopes to win Sheba’s Corona Challenge with its data analysis artificial intelligence system. It gives an 80% accuracy early warning that a Covid-19 patient is likely to suddenly deteriorate in the next hours. IAI uses similar systems to predict likely failure of its satellites.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-missile-maker-claims-its-ai-tech-can-predict-virus-patient-deterioration/
Saving lives of ventilated Covid-19 patients. (TY UWI) A new video featuring Israel’s AnapnoGuard (reported here previously) which is saving the lives from pneumonia of hundreds of coronavirus patients on ventilators in Israel, the USA and China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gv0UXt8yp8
How are you? Check your cheek. Israeli startup Binah.ai was previously into financial analysis (see here). Now it uses its Artificially Intelligent technology to analyze a video the cheek of a human face to extract vital signs and mental stress measurements. It is used in Montreal hospitals to monitor Covid-19 patients remotely.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3832195,00.html https://www.binah.ai/
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3809760,00.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeU0K662BA8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmEVpTSCzC8
Home blood tests for cancer patients. Israel’s PixCell (reported here previously) has partnered with Interreg Germany-Denmark’s Changing Cancer Care (CCC) initiative. They will assess PixCell’s HemoScreen hematology analyzer for cancer patients to perform blood tests as part of their homecare oncology treatment.
http://nocamels.com/2020/05/blood-test-device-home-chemo-treatments/
How old is your brain? Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have developed a deep learning framework based on Magnetic Resonance Images (MRIs) for age prediction. Specifically, an ensemble of deep neural networks was trained to predict a subject’s chronological age from brain imaging of healthy subjects.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/brain_age.aspx https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.25011
In-heart computer saves grandmother. Israel’s Vectorious Medical Technologies (reported here previously) has now patients from Italy, Germany, the UK and Israel, in the trial of its revolutionary in-heart monitor. It is safe and has already detected and prevented pulmonary edema and hospitalization for one elderly UK patient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDVak3p1wf0
Converting public phones into defibrillators. (TY David F) Israel’s public phone booths are being converted into lifesaving public access defibrillator stations, as part of a new national collaboration between the country’s main phone company (Bezeq) and its ambulance service (Magen David Adom).
http://nocamels.com/2020/06/israel-public-phones-defibrillator-stations/
Pickles prevent tooth decay. Israeli scientists from Ben Gurion University working with Chinese scientists have discovered that probiotics produced in the pickling process can slow the buildup of dental plaque. The research can lead to a new generation of mouthwashes for maintaining dental health.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/united-by-passion-for-pickles-israeli-chinese-team-claims-dental-discovery/
http://www.amilimani.com/index.php/component/k2/item/123-islam-the-iranian-version
Before the Islamic invasion of 1979, Iranian people had a different view of Islam. The kind of Islamic version people believed did not exist beyond their own imagination. To them, that was the real Islam. Kind, perfect and peaceful. With the return of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, ‘real’ Islam was reintroduced to the populace and it turned Iran and Iranians’ fictitious beliefs into a nightmare.
Most people around the world are not aware of this fact. I believe, historians conclusively need to elucidate this reality so that Iran is not referred to as an Islamic country.
Before the invasion of 1979, Iranians in general lived in a peaceful and relatively calm country that did not impose the religion of any kind on its citizens. Major events in Shi’a Islam was only celebrated during certain days of the year. These innocent and naïve Iranians had a completely imaginary and unrealistic vision of Islam without the slightest idea what the real Islam was, what the Qur’an said, what the Prophet of Islam did, and did not do. Irrespective of any and all, they attributed Islam with their own vision, fantasy, ideals and beliefs. In other words, Islam was only as good as the person practicing it.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16105/egypt-christians-persecuted
On May 30, 2020 — two days before President Trump congratulated Copts around the world — Egyptian authorities demolished the village of Koum al-Farag’s only Coptic church, even though it had … served three thousand Christians. According to the report, “The destruction of the church was a punishment for the ‘crime’ of building rooms for Sunday school…. When the work began, some extremist Muslims began to attack Christians.”
Police further arrested and imprisoned 14 Christians overnight. The nearest church to the Christians of Koum al-Farag, most of whom are limited to traveling by foot, is 10 miles away.
“No one should fear for their safety in a house of worship anywhere in the world.” — President Donald J. Trump, “Presidential Message on Global Coptic Day, 2020”, June 1, 2020.
All that former President Barack Obama could bring himself to do [after the 2011 Maspero Massacre, when the Egyptian government slaughtered and ran over dozens of Copts with tanks for protesting the burnings and closures of their churches] was call “for restraint on all sides” — as if Egypt’s beleaguered Christian minority needed to “restrain” itself against the nation’s armed and aggressive military.
On June 1, 2020, President Trump issued a statement titled “Presidential Message on Global Coptic Day, 2020.” (Copts are Egypt’s indigenous Christians, now a minority.) After sending his “best wishes” to the “millions of Coptic Christians in the United States and around the world,” he said that recognizing Global Coptic Day provides “an opportunity for the world to mark the contributions, legacy, and ongoing challenges facing the largest Christian group in the Middle East.” He continued:
“Today is also a time for us to acknowledge the importance of religious freedom and reaffirm our commitment to promoting and defending this core tenet of a free society. Tragically, far too many people the world over face persecution on account of their faith.”
This is certainly true for the Copts. Most recently, on April 14, 2020, an Islamic terror plot to bomb Coptic churches around Easter was thwarted. Previous plots, however — which also targeted churches during Christian holidays, when they are most packed with people and therefore offer the greatest harvest of slain Christian worshippers — came to fruition:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16106/libya-powers-play-with-fire
Cameron’s friends tell me that he and Sarkozy were both pushed into the Libyan adventure by then US President Barack Obama who wished to test his “leadership from behind” theory which, in turn, flattered the European midgets.
Libya is currently the largest theater of proxy wars in the Greater Middle East. More foreign powers are involved in the Libyan proxy war than in Syria.
According to Moscow sources, Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to gain a pause-and-resupply base for his navy on Libya’s 1,770-kilometer-long Mediterranean coast to complement the aero-naval base he has obtained in Tartus, Syria.
The second reason why this mini-world war is worthy of attention is that Libya, with the longest shoreline on the Mediterranean, is also neighbor on land to six countries, all of which could be destabilized or worse. It is no surprise that, thanks to Egyptian efforts, the Libyan dossier is slated to come up in the African Union as a threat to security across the continent.
A series of seesaw battles, in some of which Haftar’s forces scored tactical gains, has shown that without military intervention by a bigger player, neither side is able to kick the other out of the game…. The prospect of Libya being Syrianized must be taken seriously.
With coronavirus lockdown gradually whittled down, last week we started working on a series of conferences on the greater Middle East region for one of the local universities. As we suggested topics we came to Libya where a forgotten war has been going on for almost a decade.
The response from committee members was almost unanimous: Who cares about Libya?
Evil tongues might suggest that, coming from French and British academics, this “who cares” sounds like an attempt to hide a shameful family secret.
After all, the tragic mess we witness in Libya today is, in good part, a result of policies pursued by French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Premier David Cameron, who took on the job of toppling Col. Muammar Gaddafi without knowing what they would need to do next.
Cameron’s friends tell me that he and Sarkozy were both pushed into the Libyan adventure by then US President Barack Obama, who wished to test his “leadership from behind” theory which, in turn, flattered the European midgets.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16108/finally-a-good-new-snap-back-plan-on-iran
The RSC plan also advocates that Congress impose further new sanctions on “Iran’s petrochemical, shipping, financial, construction and automotive sectors.” Legislation would also target “Iran’s human rights violations and regional aggression, including in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. And it suggests sanctioning the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a European mechanism that the United States has criticized as a way to evade US sanctions on Iran.”
In an unprecedented but welcome manner, the RSC bill would for the first time place “new sanctions on the arms industries of countries like Russia and China that return to selling weapons to Iran, the banks facilitating any sale of weapons to Iran, and the companies shipping weapons.”
Diplomacy will not stop Iran. Real pressure will.
With the new RSC strategy, the US and its allies have a real shot at taking down the regime in Iran. That would indeed signal the success of economic “maximum pressure.”
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) in the House of Representatives, proposed on June 10, 2020, an unprecedentedly strong new Iran policy. The package of proposed legislation would end all Iranian waivers, snap-back economic sanctions in place prior to the Iran nuclear deal, and set severe economic penalties on those seeking to sell advanced weaponry to Iran.
The new GOP plan also advocates that Congress impose further new sanctions on “Iran’s petrochemical, shipping, financial, construction and automotive sectors.” Legislation would also target “Iran’s human rights violations and regional aggression, including in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. And it suggests sanctioning the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a European mechanism that the United States has criticized as a way to evade US sanctions on Iran.”
https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/13/will-democrats-do-the-right-thing-respecting-catholics/
A coalition of prominent Catholics has asked prominent Democrats to step up and defend American Catholics against anti-Catholic bigotry. Will they do it?
Anti-Catholicism, it has been said, is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals.
I’m not sure anyone would accuse Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) of being an intellectual. Her colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee such as Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) are also safe from that accusation (and simple courtesy requires that we pass by Hawaii’s Senator Mazie Hirono in silence). But by dint of long occupation in the corridors of power, they all have imbibed the shallow, pseudo-enlightened anti-Catholicism that comes with membership in The Club.
Examples are legion, but one memorable exhibition came in 2017. Amy Coney Barrett, a professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and a prominent Roman Catholic, was nominated by President Trump for a position on the Court of Appeals in the Seventh Circuit. Sen. Feinstein, like a mosquito buzzing furiously to get inside the netting and draw blood, clearly was troubled by Barrett’s Catholicism, especially as it related the question of abortion in general and Roe v. Wade in particular. “The dogma lives loudly within you,” Sen. Feinstein observed, “and that’s a concern.”
Judge Barrett pointed out that she would not, as an Appeals Court Judge, be in a position to adjudicate the Constitutionality of Roe v. Wade. Moreover, she said, her originalist judicial philosophy respected precedent and strove to keep politics out of the judicial process. We have politicians to do politics. She would follow the law, not her personal preferences, in deciding cases.
The exchange went viral, serving to highlight the reflexive hostility to Catholics, and indeed to practicing Christians generally, among our elites. It also highlighted a deep, er, tension between the habitual badgering of Catholic nominees about the niceties of their faith and the prohibition against religious tests for office enshrined with all possible clarity in Article VI of the Constitution. “[N]o religious Test,” that brief Article concludes, “shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The president of the Anti-Defamation League, the president of Princeton University, the president of Notre Dame University, and the Harvard Law Review, are among those who, stirred by Feinstein’s admonition, have publicly declared their concern about this violation of the spirit if not the letter of Article VI.
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