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Ruth King

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum ‘Bloat’ is the least of the new Israeli government’s problems

By on May 19th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/bloat-is-the-least-of-the-new-israeli-governments-problems/

The statements made by three new ministers upon receiving the proverbial keys to the offices from their immediate predecessors illustrate that Israel’s 35th government is in for a very bumpy ride.

Public criticism of the new Israeli government has focused on how “bloated” it is. Prior to and since the swearing-in on Sunday of the coalition’s 34 ministers, every headline in the print and broadcast media was and has been highlighting its unprecedented size.

In addition, each disgruntled analyst has bemoaned the exorbitant cost of maintaining dozens of ministries, many of which were concocted to satisfy the demands of coalition partners and party members fearing relegation to the backbenches of the Knesset. The main outcry over the high price of assuaging egos in this fashion is that more than 1 million citizens are newly unemployed, with businesses imploding all over the place, as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns.

It’s a valid argument, to be sure. But as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out in his speech during the four-hour plenary session that preceded the swearing-in ceremony, “If we had gone into a fourth election, the additional cost would have amounted to NIS 2 billion (approximately $284 million). The additional cost of a unity government [was roughly] NIS 85 million ($24 million) a year, infinitely lower than the cost of additional elections.”

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The Tide Is Turning Back To Biological Definitions Of Gender By David Marcus

By on May 19th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/19/the-tide-is-turning-back-to-biological-definitions-of-gender/

In 2014 Kevin Williamson wrote a column in the Chicago Tribune titled “Laverne Cox Is Not A Woman.” The premise of the piece, focused on the actor, was that trans women are not women but rather individuals who believe they are women. In what was at the time one of the biggest victories of the trans advocacy movement the Tribune retracted the piece for misleading facts and a poor tone. The message had been sent. Saying trans women are not women was forbidden and style guides were changed across the country.

But in the past week or so events in a Connecticut courthouse have ushered in a dramatic change to this rule. Mainstream outlets like the New York Post and Newsweek published pieces explicitly advocating the position that got Williamson’s piece banned six years ago. Both are written by women and both make clear that the authors believe in a biological definition of sex. An article from February in the Wall Street Journal also took this stance even earlier. What is emerging is a more concerted effort to defend biological gender in the news media space.

This is really pretty remarkable. Progressives and trans advocates had every reason to believe that the arc of history could only move in their direction. After all, once defining gender based on biology became offensive, even a slur, how could it ever make its way back into polite society? But what they didn’t understand was just how massive the gap was between their beliefs about the nature of gender and those of the American people.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

For Dems to Succeed, Americans Must Fail Inside the Left’s morbid agenda to destroy America’s middle class. Michael Cutler

By on May 19th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/democrats-succeed-americans-must-fail-michael-cutler/

Many claim that the Democrats want open borders to import millions of new voters who will likely vote for Democrats.

Undeniably this is an accurate statement but only partially addresses the strategy behind the Democrats’ push for open borders and an end to immigration law enforcement as optimized by the creation of “Sanctuary Cities” and Sanctuary States and immigration mayhem that ensues.

Today’s Democrats bear no resemblance to the Democrats of the past.  Today’s Radical Democrats are hell-bent on seizing permanent political power at the expense of America and Americans.

Traditional Democrats supported American workers and addressed their concerns while Republicans backed up business owners’ goals of fewer regulations and greater profits.  This balance made sense and helped Americans and America to prosper.

My dad used to say that the easiest way to turn capitalists into communists is to take away their money.  Flooding America with millions of Third World workers who bring Third World expectations of Third World wages and working conditions results in the loss of jobs by millions of American and lawful immigrant workers and the suppression of wages for all workers.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, POLITICS Comments turned off

Biden’s Most Ridiculous Veep Prospect By Rich Lowry

By on May 19th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/stacey-abrams-joe-biden-vice-presidential-prospect/

Stacey Abrams’s foremost political achievement is making her Georgia gubernatorial loss into a cause célèbre among Democrats.

Stacey Abrams has another distinction to add to her resume — she’s among the most preposterous potential vice-presidential candidates ever.

Her attempt to leverage a failed Georgia gubernatorial bid into a spot on the Democratic ticket is so brazenly absurd that it’s hard to think of precedents.

But the 46-year-old African-American activist is not one to be constrained by standard political practice, or reality. She refused to concede her narrow, but clear, 2018 gubernatorial loss, instead alleging she’d been undone by a massive voter-suppression scheme.

As she put it at a recent event, “my opponent who was a cartoon villain stole the voices of Georgians.”

Usually, candidates who won’t acknowledge their defeats are written off as sore losers. Such is the inflamed and paranoid state of Democrats in the Trump era that rather than being embarrassed by the Georgian’s graceless and unsubstantiated claims of electoral theft, they have embraced and parroted them.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Massive Trump Coronavirus Supply Effort that the Media Loves to Hate By Rich Lowry

By on May 19th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-massive-trump-coronavirus-supply-effort-that-the-media-loves-to-hate/

The administration has used deft improvisation to secure huge supplies of PPE.

There is a new cardinal rule in journalism — never write anything favorable about the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, even about its successes.

It’s why the story of how the administration handled the potential ventilator crisis has gone almost entirely untold, and why its effort to secure supplies of personal protective equipment, or PPE, has been gotten largely skeptical or hostile coverage.

Any government response to a once-in-a-generation crisis is going to be subject to legitimate criticism, and there’s no question that almost every major government in the Western world, including ours, should have acted sooner. But to read the press, there is basically nothing good that the Trump administration has done over the last three months.

This is manifestly false. In a briefing for reporters last week on FEMA’s work securing PPE, FEMA administrator Peter Gaynor laid out the raw numbers: FEMA, HHS, and the private sector have shipped or are currently shipping 92.7 million N95 respirators, 133 million surgical masks, 10.5 million face shields, 42.4 million surgical gowns, and 989 million gloves.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Hydroxychloroquine Meltdown By David Harsanyi

By on May 19th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-hydroxychloroquine-meltdown/

The president claims he’s taking it as a prophylactic. The media met that with hysteria instead of conscientious coverage.

President Donald Trump claims that he’s taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against contracting coronavirus, and that he has taken zinc and antibiotic azithromycin as well.

There’s no consensus that hydroxychloroquine is an effective therapeutic treatment for COVID-19 (early studies have yielded different results, and the NIH recently began a controlled clinical trial). Few people I’ve read argue that it’s a useful prophylactic. Nevertheless, the frenzied and childish reaction to Trump’s championing what amounts to a commonly used prescription drug is more destructive than his annoying habit of bringing it up.

A CNN columnist warns of “the danger in Trump’s decision to self-medicate.” If Trump is taking the drug, it’s been prescribed and presumably he’s being monitored, yet the CNN piece tries to create impression that the president is popping hydroxychloroquine tablets like mints to soothe his anxieties.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Fraudulent Models, Fatal Consequences These models, and the decisions based on them, should not inflict any more damage. By Julie Kelly

By on May 19th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/18/fraudulent-models-fatal-consequences/

It was the model that shocked the world.

In mid-March, British researchers issued an alarming study that predicted 2.2 million Americans would die of COVID-19 by August without immediate, draconian measures to halt its spread. As the virus rampaged across the country, more than 80 percent of Americans would be infected, the experts warned, causing massive shortages of hospital beds and intensive care units. Death and misery would be the new norm for months to come.

Dr. Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at the London-based Imperial College who led the team, made “social distancing” a household term. “A combination of case isolation, social distancing of the entire population and either household quarantine or school and university closure are required,” Ferguson wrote. “All four interventions combined are predicted to have the largest effect on transmission.”

Ferguson’s work terrified policymakers, the news media, and general public. Dr. Deborah Birx referenced the model during a March 16 press briefing at the White House. “Sweeping new federal recommendations announced on Monday for Americans to sharply limit their activities appeared to draw on a dire scientific report warning that, without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of coronavirus and suppress new cases, 2.2 million people in the United States could die,” the New York Times reported March 16.

Ferguson strayed from the role of objective scientist to global policy advisor, insisting his harsh rules should continue for at least 18 months until a vaccine was found. “It’s a difficult position for the world to be in,” he opined after his paper’s release.

Acting on Ferguson’s doomsday predictions, the Centers for Disease Control issued strict guidance that prompted state officials to close schools; shutter “nonessential” businesses; and issue stay-at-home orders. They simply were acting on the best available science and data, governors claimed, as they ordered their constituents to live under a form of house arrest for weeks on end.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Governor Newsom Orders Ballots To Be Sent To Every Cemetery In State (Satire)

By on May 19th, 2020

Governor Newsom Orders Ballots To Be Sent To Every Cemetery In State

SACRAMENTO, CA—To prepare for the upcoming November election, Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered ballots to be sent to every cemetery in the state.

The governor of California said that ballot boxes would be sent to cemeteries across the state to ensure everyone had the right to vote, dead or alive.

“We need every single Californian to vote, living or dead,” Newsom said, wagging his finger. “Without everyone doing their part, no matter their undocumented living status, we can’t beat the Republicans this time around. It’s science!” When he said the word “science,” he lifted a test tube into the air to lend some credence to his claims. 

Newsom said that people who don’t want the dead to vote are discriminating against the “mortally challenged.”

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Israel: The Settlements Are Not Illegal The annexation of lands in Judea and Samaria is not contrary to international law by Michael Calvo ******

By on May 19th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16032/israel-settlements-not-illegal

Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired (Art. 26.1) and that the exercise of these rights shall be free from discrimination of any kind (Art. 2). — UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007.

Among others, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Israel and Luxembourg voted in favor of the Declaration. Since 2007, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, who voted against, formally endorsed the Declaration in 2010. In their relations with Israel, these states cannot claim that the Declaration does not apply to Israeli Jews, since such position would amount to blatant racial discrimination.

[I]t cannot seriously be contended, as the EU, France, Britain, Russia, China and other states do, that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal and that annexation is contrary to international law. This position is political, not legal.

Article 80 of the United Nations Charter (1945) recognized the validity of existing rights that states and peoples acquired under the various mandates, including the British Mandate for Palestine (1922), and the rights of Jews to settle in the Land of Palestine (Judea-Samaria) by virtue of these instruments. (Pr. E. Rostow). These rights cannot be altered by the UN.

“Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements…nothing in this Charter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.” — Article 80, paragraph 1, UN Charter)

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007, by a majority of 144 states in favor, 4 votes against, and 11 abstentions, recognized that indigenous people (also known as first people, aboriginal people or native people) have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired (Art. 26.1) and that the exercise of these rights shall be free from discrimination of any kind (Art. 2).

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

India: Standing up to China in the Post-Coronavirus World by Vijeta Uniyal

By on May 19th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16006/india-china-coronavirus

In true Orwellian fashion, top Chinese diplomats are still demanding that foreign governments rewrite the history of the coronavirus outbreak.

While India had shown restraint, Communist China has shown little. The Chinese air force has continued its incursions into Taiwanese air space. China has also tightened its grip on artificial islands it created in the South China Sea by setting up fictitious local governments on them. These weaponized islands… trample on the sovereignty of many of its maritime neighbors, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan.

The United States and rest of the Western world would do well to see the pandemic as a wake-up call and decouple their crucial and strategic sectors from dependence on China in any way. As US General Jack Keane has repeatedly warned the US, China a not a friend; “it is a predator economically, geopolitically and militarily.”

The world is looking to India and its Asian Pacific allies, in a strong alliance with the West, to take a stand and face China’s increasing military, geopolitical and economic intimidation.

As coronavirus leaves behind a trail of human suffering and economic devastation, nations across the world have begun asking critical questions about the global pandemic. Countries are enquiring into Communist China’s handling of the pandemic, which first appeared late last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

As early as January 14, China had used the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations agency, to spread disinformation about the human-to-human transmissibility of Covid-19, a remark that led US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien later to call the WHO a “tool of Chinese propaganda.”

While U.S. President Donald J. Trump faced mostly undeserved, politicized criticism for questioning China’s culpability in the spread of the worldwide pandemic and his calls for an international probe into it, more and more capitals across the Western world are making similar demands.

On March 20, The Washington Post attacked President Trump for even mentioning China in context of the pandemic. “Trump has no qualms about calling coronavirus the ‘Chinese Virus.’ That’s a dangerous attitude, experts say.”

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