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Ruth King

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Why Did Amy Klobuchar Drop Out? Does It Matter? Charles Lipson

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://spectator.us/amy-klobuchar-drop-out/
Party Insiders Would Rather Go to a Meet-and-Greet in Wuhan than See an Avowed Socialist at the Top of the Ticket

Minnesota Nice Wasn’t Enough. Neither were Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s center-left positions and bland presentations. And so, today, she left the race for president. Why?

The immediate reason is that her chances of winning anything on Super Tuesday were grim. The only exception was her home state, and it was far from certain. Klobuchar’s failures at the ballot box meant she had no plausible path forward. Her donors would stop giving and her backers would begin blaming her (and other also-rans) for blocking Joe Biden, who they now see as the only center-left candidate with a shot at the nomination. Biden’s huge victory in South Carolina and Bloomberg’s disastrous debates cemented that position. 

Party insiders are desperate for an alternative to Bernie Sanders. They would rather go to a meet-and-greet in Wuhan than see an avowed socialist at the top of the ticket. Those pros have solid reasons for their fear. First, they think Sanders would devastate their down-ballot candidates, jeopardizing their chances to keep the House and retake the Senate. They could be wrong, just as Republican insiders were in 2016, but they are convinced Bernie would pose impossible obstacles for centrist Democrats across the country. Second, Bernie would assault the insiders hold on lucrative lobbying contracts and policy influence, just as Trump’s victory smacked down the K Street Republicans, the US Chamber of Commerce, and traditional Republican think tanks.

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KATIE HOPKINS VIDEO-KEEP TRUMP IN POWER

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oDYZc6zP7U

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Klobuchar cancels Minnesota rally as protesters take stage

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elections-2020/klobuchar-cancels-minnesota-rally-as-protesters-take-stage/ar-BB10C2SY?li=BBnb7Kz

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. — Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar canceled a rally in her home state Sunday after protesters took over the stage shouting for her to drop out of the presidential race over the case of a black teen sentenced to life in prison while Klobuchar was the county’s top prosecutor.

Klobuchar was scheduled to speak at St. Louis Park High School in suburban Minneapolis ahead of Tuesday’s Minnesota primary, which she is fighting to win and notch her first victory. But dozens of protesters entered the gymnasium, raised signs and chanted “black lives matter” and “Myon,” a reference to Myon Burrell, who was convicted of the murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards.

An Associated Press investigation questioned Klobuchar’s handling of the 2002 case, in which Burrell was sent to prison for life following a police investigation some say was flawed. Klobuchar has said if there is new information in the case it should be considered — a response that some activists have said doesn’t go far enough.

Klobuchar has struggled to win support from black voters, a major problem for her campaign as she seeks the Democratic nomination. Her best finish in the first four contests was in New Hampshire, an overwhelmingly white state where she came in third. In both Nevada and South Carolina she trailed far behind the front-runners, failing to win a single delegate.

She has rejected suggestions she drop out of the race, saying she plans to compete at least through the upcoming Super Tuesday contests, when 14 states will vote and about one-third of delegates will be up for grabs.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Coronavirus Numbers Are Not Quite What They Seem Henry Miller

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/01/the-coronavirus-numbers-are-not-quite-what-they-seem/

Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the FDA.

The purpose of this slightly pedantic discussion is not to minimize the significance of the new coronavirus, but rather to put into perspective some of the media’s warnings of apocalypse.

Fractions are taught in elementary school, but adults sometimes still manage to misunderstand how they work in everyday life. I was reminded of that after President Trump’s Saturday press conference, which focused on the federal government’s response to the Wuhan coronavirus (formally SARS-CoV-2, with the illness it causes designated COVID-19). Let me explain.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the articulate, veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described at the presser how the efforts to prevent the spread—or “contain” the virus—would continue, but warned that we should expect the number of coronavirus cases in the United States to increase.

Fauci emphasized that the chance of becoming infected remains low and that the majority of those who contract the virus—75 to 80 percent—will experience it like a “bad flu or a cold.” The other 15 to 20 percent, he said, may need “advanced medical care.”

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The 1619 Project and its Critics by Peter Wood

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/01/the-1619-project-and-its-critics/

Peter W. Wood is president of the National Association of Scholars.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ought to step up, be courageous, and debate the historians with whom she disagrees. They’re waiting. All historical claims, particularly those with as wide-reaching and radical ramifications as these, must be discussed and scrutinized by trained scholars.

The 1619 Project—the New York Times campaign launched in August 2019 to transform American history into a tale of racial oppression and nothing but for the last 400 years—has attracted a great deal of critical attention. Much of this attention has come from professional historians who are nonplussed by the numerous misstatements of fact, the disappearance of key historical events, and the forced march of polemical interpretation that the Times attempted to hang on American history.

The dissenting historians themselves have found various outlets to express their views. Among the most intriguing of these platforms has been the World Socialist Website, which has featured interviews with such luminaries as Gordon Wood, university professor at Brown University, and James McPherson, professor emeritus of U.S. history at Princeton University.

The socialists, upset with the Times for preferring racial grievance to class grievance, rounded up other prominent historians, including Victoria Bynum, James Oakes, Dolores Janiewski, Richard Carwardine, and Clayborne Carson, to express their critiques of the Times’ fanciful attempt to rewrite history.

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Elections New Impeachment Rules Would Snare Obama Victor Davis Hanson

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/01/new-impeachment-rules-would-snare-obama/

Obama was not impeached not because he did not do things that Donald Trump did, but because his opposition in the House did not do what Democrats later most willingly did: attempt a coup to remove a president without cause.

Barack Obama’s eight-year tenure was detrimental to the United States, but like most of his nonbelievers, I harbor no animosity for his person.

Few critics that I know advocated that Obama be impeached, much less removed from office, before his reelection bid—even amid his worst scandals and dangerous policies. But we are now in a new age, whose protocols might have made it impossible for the Obama Administration to have finished two terms. 

Remember, his administration ran some 2,000 guns to Mexican cartels in some hare-brained scheme to monitor violence spilling into the United States. Under the new customs, he should have been impeached for instructing Attorney General Eric Holder to refuse to testify to Congress about Fast and Furious, or at least for not handing over subpoenaed documents. Imagine a Trump gun-walking scheme in Mexico. 

It was bad enough that Holder was the first attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress, well aside from the embarrassment of his unhinged outbursts about “my people” (hint: his “my” did not mean Americans of all races and creeds). We all remember Holder’s lunatic dismissals of his own country as “a nation of cowards.” (Imagine Bill Barr referring to “my people” or calling Americans cowards)

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why Are Palestinians Dying in Hamas Prisons? by Bassam Tawil

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15664/palestinians-hamas-prisons

The families’ calls for launching investigations into the death of their sons while in Hamas detention have been ignored not only by Hamas, but also by the international community, human rights organizations and media.

Al-Sa’afeen’s mother emphasized that the Israelis treat Palestinians much better than Hamas does. “When the Jews arrest someone, they contact his family to say they are holding him… But Hamas refused to provide us with any information about the detention of my son or his health condition…. We told [Hamas] that he’s sick and needs medicine, but they refused to give him any treatment. Until today, we don’t know why my son was arrested.”

When Palestinians die in Palestinian prisons, the murders are presumably regarded as the handiwork of supposedly savage Arabs, who are — with racist contempt — held to a lower standard of conduct than Westerners, and therefore regarded as unworthy of human rights, accountable governance, due process or equal justice under the law.

They are evidently considered “just” Palestinian families complaining about brutal torture in Palestinian prisons — so international human rights organizations do not even notice them.

Essam al-Sa’afeen, a 39-year-old Palestinian from al-Bureij refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip, was pronounced dead on February 23, one month after he was arrested by Hamas security forces. His family and friends are demanding answers from Hamas regarding the circumstances of the death al-Sa’afeen, a father of six.

Hamas says it has formed a commission of inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death.

According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior, which is in charge of the Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip, al-Sa’afeen died shortly after he was transferred from prison to a hospital. The ministry said al-Sa’afeen was rushed to the hospital after a “sudden deterioration in his health condition.”

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China Cracks Down on Religion Even Harder by Judith Bergman

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15638/china-religion-crackdown

“In practice, your religion no longer matters, if you are Buddhist, or Taoist, or Muslim or Christian: the only religion allowed is faith in the Chinese Communist Party.” — A Catholic priest, AsiaNews.it, December 31, 2019.

One mother, who is a member of The Church of Almighty God, said that her son told her to abandon her faith when he returned home after school. “My son told me that if I get arrested, our entire family will be finished. He threatened to jump off the building to end his life if I continued practicing my faith,” she recently told Bitter Winter.

One shop-owner told Bitter Winter, “A few years ago, many shops sold religious couplets. In 2018, the government started banning them. Last year, all couplets were confiscated from shops, and this year, sellers are threatened to be fined and imprisoned. No one sells them in Shangqiu anymore. Who dares to risk?”

China, meanwhile, maintains that its human rights record is admirable. According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, “The Chinese people are in the best position to judge China’s human rights condition, which is at its historical best.” — Time.com, January 15, 2020.

China is increasing its already extremely severe suppression of religious freedom. More than a year ago, at a November 2018 hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, the President of the Religious Freedom Institute, Thomas F. Farr, described China’s religious suppression as “the most systematic and brutal attempt to control Chinese religious communities since the Cultural Revolution.”

On December 30, 2019, China’s Communist Party (CCP) announced new “Administrative Measures for Religious Groups”. The measures — which came into force on February 1, 2020 — stipulate that religious organizations exist to promote the CCP and its ideology, according to Bitter Winter, a magazine on religious liberty and human rights in China.

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Democrats, Progressives and Socialists Exposing the danger. Bruce Hendry *****

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/democrats-progressives-and-socialists-frontpagemagcom/

Starting today we are publishing in serial form an essay by Bruce Hendry on the existential crisis our nation is facing. The crisis has been caused by a dramatic shift to the left by one our two main political parties. Tragically, the leaders of the Democrat Party seem to have learned nothing from the social catastrophes created by socialist illusions in the past century.

By declaring himself a socialist – although “communist” would more accurately reflect his lifelong commitments – presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has done our country an enormous favor. When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989, it ended a 72-year international civil war that liberated over a billion people from the chains of a totalitarian system. Yet there was a deafening and costly silence on the part of the victors over this historic result.

While millions in the former Soviet bloc gathered to praise President Reagan and America as the heroes of their liberation, western leaders were curiously mute. By the time the Wall fell, Reagan was no longer president. Under his successor, George H. W. Bush, there were no victory laps taken. No major events to celebrate the victory of the Free World or to drive home the lessons learned from this past – the bankrupting of whole continents, the engineering of famines in the Soviet Union, which had previously been the “bread basket of Europe,” the murder of more than 100 million people in peacetime for standing in the way of the socialist planners.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Could the End of the Afghanistan Misadventure Finally Be At Hand? Wilsonian nation-building failed. It’s time to discard it as a foreign policy strategy. Mon Mar 2, 2020 Robert Spencer

By on March 2nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/could-end-afghanistan-misadventure-finally-be-hand-robert-spencer/

Afghanistan “is not going to become Switzerland overnight,” an American official said as the U.S. and the Taliban signed a peace accord on Saturday morning, and you have to admire his understatement. The United States has sacrificed the lives of numerous heroic service members and squandered trillions for nearly two decades now in the fond hope that it could remake Afghanistan into Switzerland, and the one good thing about this “peace accord” with the Taliban is that it heralds the long-overdue end of this fool’s errand.

The old assumptions, although they have led to policies that have multiply failed, are still prevalent. The usual objections are being made. In its story on the peace accord, the Washington Free Beacon reported that “a group of Republican members of Congress” had petitioned the Trump administration, asking the President not to go through with the agreement. “They and other critics say the Taliban cannot be trusted to implement peace and that the moment U.S. forces vacate the country, terror forces will again rise to power.”

This echoed a statement from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said: “We are never going to get the U.S. military out of Afghanistan unless we take care to see that there is something going on that will provide the stability that will be necessary for us to leave.”

The unnamed American official said: “Everybody has the same goals. No one wants to see the return of the Islamic Emirate.” Well, sure. Everybody, that is, except the Taliban, who are still determined to reestablish their Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. Once the American troops finally leave, “terror forces” will indeed make every effort to “again rise to power.” There will not be “stability” in Afghanistan. Does that mean that we have to keep troops there forever? Or should the United States focus on what is best for America in Afghanistan, working to ensure that the Taliban cannot engage in international jihad terror activity, and otherwise leaving the Afghans to their own devices?

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