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Ruth King

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During the Democrat debate, they all talked about how to spend your money By Andrea Widburg

By on February 20th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/during_the_democrat_debate_they_all_talked_about_how_to_spend_your_money.html

“Despite all the hate, one thing was missing from the debate: Trump’s actual policies. Except for complaining about Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord, none of the candidates justified their hatred. Trump is no longer a president with policies. He is a bogeyman who lives in their heads, a monstrous creature whose mere existence despoils the world. They claim that he’s a fraud, as if he hasn’t already proven himself to the American people over the past three years.”

Putting aside the unpleasant personalities and pointless squabbles that the Democrat presidential candidates showed America on Wednesday night in Nevada, what was important was that they shared with us their vision for an American future. They see America as a dark, hate-filled dystopic country that can be saved only if a government under their care collects as much money as possible from its citizens and spreads it around to people whose votes they want.

If you cast your mind back to 2016, Trump did not speak to different racial or economic constituencies. He spoke to all Americans. His vision for America included secure borders, lower taxes, fewer regulations, strong national security, and a withdrawal from the Wilsonian ideal of America as the world’s policemen. To the extent Democrats claimed Trump was a racist it was because they interpolated racism into his words where none existed.

Trump continues to govern for all Americans. Sure, he boasts about low black unemployment, but his point is always that a rising tide lives all boats – and that he is the tide and all Americans, regardless of race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, etc., are the boats. His Keep America Great rallies continue to speak to everyone. He sees America as a shining jewel that can become even bigger and brighter in his next term.

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China’s Facade of Stability Recent stresses have exposed the lack of trust at the core of Beijing’s repressive model. By Jimmy Lai

By on February 20th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-facade-of-stability-11582156842?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

There exists today no vaccine for the coronavirus now engulfing China. That is a challenge for President Xi Jinping as he struggles to contain it. But the spread of the coronavirus has revealed a truth that poses a much greater risk to Mr. Xi: There is no cure for Chinese communism except the collapse of the party.

The more Mr. Xi pursues his authoritarian agenda, the more distrust he will sow at home and abroad. Far from transforming Beijing into the world’s leading superpower, his policies will instead keep China from taking its rightful place of honor in a peaceful, modern and integrated world.

This much should already be clear from how badly Chinese authorities have botched their response to a virus that each day claims more innocent Chinese lives. The first culprits were the local authorities in Wuhan. When Dr. Li Wenliang tried to alert people about a potential outbreak, the official response was to have the police pressure him to sign a letter that accused him of spreading rumors and disturbing public order.

Then, when the outbreak did happen and a seafood market was identified as the probable origin of the virus, local authorities closed it down. They hid the threat, telling the public that the market was merely being renovated. In other words, as the outbreak was already under way the local government did what Communist governments always do: cover up.

Deception is China’s true rule of law. Now the world must start asking something that Chinese people living under communism ask themselves every day: How reliable can China’s political, social and economic institutions be when its local government leaders routinely lie to their citizens and superiors alike?

Mr. Xi has no understanding of this. He talks of a “people’s war” on the coronavirus and has mobilized vast resources to combat it. Communist governments excel at mobilizing resources because they are command economies, and these big actions—quarantining entire cities, deploying the military, building hospitals overnight—can look impressive.

But their efficacy is hobbled by the lack of free communication.

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Knives Out: A Glorious Wrestlemania of a Democratic Debate By Jim Geraghty

By on February 20th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/knives-out-a-glorious-wrestlemania-of-a-democratic-debate/

Early on, political consultant Mike Murphy labeled the debate “a six way tornado of long-repressed rage, fear and desperation.” For Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and maybe even Joe Biden, the end is near. A lot of these candidates, who would be allies under different circumstances, now can barely stand to be on the same stage with one another.

The non-Bloomberg candidates contend that the former mayor is trying to buy the presidency, and they detest him for waltzing in late and rocketing up to top-tier status by throwing around hundreds of millions of dollars in ads. Within the first ten minutes, everyone had thrown a hard metaphorical punch on him and seemed to gang up on him with glee.

Tonight we saw that Mike Bloomberg the presidential candidate is way less impressive than Mike Bloomberg the advertising campaign. He’s regretful and embarrassed by the way stop-and-frisk turned out. His lawsuits and NDAs were just some jokes that went wrong. He promises to release his tax returns in a few weeks, and everyone has to understand because he’s too wealthy to use Turbo Tax.

Warren just tore Bloomberg apart on his former female employees who can’t talk about their disputes with him because of nondisclosure agreements. Bloomberg looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, utterly unprepared for this, other than to insist that he had many female employees over the years and most of them hadn’t sued him or contended that he created a hostile working environment. Biden got in a good shot: “If people who signed NDA’s want to come forward, just say ‘yes they can.’” When Joe Biden is verbally body-slamming you over treatment of women, you’ve made a critical error.

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The 7 most dramatic, eye-popping moments from the Democratic debate in Las Vegas Everybody piled on Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg went after Bernie Sanders, and much more. By Dylan Scott and Li Zhou

By on February 20th, 2020

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/19/21144763/nevada-democratic-debate-highlights-warren-bloomberg

But it was Warren who landed the biggest blow, with a clever bit of misdirection:

I’d like to talk about who we’re running against. A billionaire who calls women “fat broads and horse-faced lesbians.”

At the Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, Mike Bloomberg took a lot of heat, Elizabeth Warren looked feisty, and Bernie Sanders started to get the frontrunner treatment from his competitors.

Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, was the target early and often for the other Democratic candidates; they attacked him for his billions of dollars in wealth, the sexual harassment allegations he’s faced, and his record as mayor, particularly his continuation of the stop-and-frisk policy that disproportionately affected nonwhite New Yorkers. Warren was his most relentless foil, going after him again and again on a range of subjects. Sanders faced plenty of scrutiny, too, from his opponents and from the debate moderators, befitting his status as the tentative frontrunner with voting finally underway.

With three days before the Nevada caucuses, Wednesday night’s debate performance was pivotal for several candidates. With votes already cast in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has established himself as the early frontrunner, but the race still seems very volatile.

Pete Buttigieg narrowly won Iowa and finished a strong second in New Hampshire, but he might struggle as the primary moves to more diverse states. After dismal showings in the first two states, Joe Biden is still betting he can turn his campaign around in Nevada and then South Carolina before having a big Super Tuesday on March 3. Warren and Amy Klobuchar have done enough to keep their campaigns afloat, but they need to break through soon to make a serious run at the party’s nomination.

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China’s Government Is Like Something out of ‘1984’ By Victor Davis Hanson

By on February 20th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/chinas-government-is-like-something-out-of-1984/

The Chinese communist government increasingly poses an existential threat not just to its own 1.4 billion citizens but to the world at large.

China is currently in a dangerously chaotic state. And why not, when a premodern authoritarian society leaps wildly into the brave new world of high-tech science in a single generation?

The Chinese technological revolution is overseen by an Orwellian dictatorship. Predictably, the Chinese Communist Party has not developed the social, political or cultural infrastructure to ensure that its sophisticated industrial and biological research does not go rogue and become destructive to itself and to the billions of people who are on the importing end of Chinese products and protocols.

Central party officials run the government, military, media and universities collectively in a manner reminiscent of the science-fiction Borg organism of “Star Trek,” which was a horde of robot-like entities all under the control of a central mind.

Thirty years ago, American pundits began gushing over China’s sudden leap from horse-drawn power to solar, wind and nuclear energy. The Chinese communist government wowed Westerners. It created from nothing high-speed rail, solar farms, shiny new airports and gleaming new high-density apartment buildings.

Western-trained Chinese scientists soon were conducting sophisticated medical and scientific research. And they often did so rapidly, without the prying regulators, nosy elected officials and bothersome citizen lawsuits that often burden American and European scientists.

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What explains Germany’s persistent, quixotic friendship with Iran?By Orit Arfa

By on February 20th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/what-explains-germanys-persistent-quixotic-friendship-with-iran/

A bungled telegram marking the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, coming on the heels of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, puts some Jewish groups on edge.

At the World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on Jan. 23 marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier declared: “Germany’s responsibility does not expire. We want to live up to our responsibility. By this, you should measure us.”

On Feb. 5, his office sent, by mistake, a congratulatory telegram to the Iranian regime on the occasion of “Islamic Revolution’s Victory Day” on Feb. 11.

According to a spokesperson from Steinmeier’s office, the error resulted from a coordination issue with the German embassy in Tehran. The spokesperson added that the text of the telegram erroneously sent also contained critical remarks, although it has not been publicly released.

The intent to mark the founding of a regime that pledges to wipe Israel off the map is just a small string of German actions vis-à-vis Iran that prompt pro-Jewish and human-rights activists to measure Germany’s contrition over the Holocaust unfavorably.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Bahraini Supreme Court sentenced a man to three years in prison for burning an Israeli flag at a pro-Palestinian protest.

By on February 19th, 2020

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-flag-burner-sentenced-to-prison-in-arab-nation

A Bahraini court refused to hear an appeal by a convicted Bahraini man found guilty of organizing an illegal pro-Palestinian gathering, rioting and burning the Israeli flag in the town of Budaiya, Bahrain in May 2019. He was sentenced to three-years in prison, according to media reports this week.

The prosecution said the man “intended to endanger people’s lives and properties, to destabilize public security and to disrupt traffic.” The burning of the Israeli flag at the entrance to the village of Abu Saiba was intended to block streets, according to reports.

Following the news, Twitter erupted with a fury of claims that this was the first time an Arab country punished a person for burning the Israeli flag and the sentence shows a thawing of ties with Israel and a desire to appease the Jewish country.

Bahraini journalist Adel Marzooq tweeted, “This is the first time that Bahrain punishes citizens for burning the Israeli flag. It is striking that it is the same punishment prescribed in the Israeli Penal Law (3 years imprisonment).”

During a June 2019 interview with Israel’s Channel 13, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said, “Israel is historically part of the heritage of this whole region. So the Jewish people have a place among us.”

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner also presented parts of US President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” in Bahrain.

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Two U.S. lawmakers (Jim Jordan R-Ohio and Mike Johnson R-LA) visited historic sites in Judea and Samaria days after the creation of a special ‘deal of the century’ committee to begin mapping out Israeli sovereignty in the region. By Malkah Fleisher

By on February 19th, 2020

https://unitedwithisrael.org/us-lawmakers-tour-judea-and-samaria-discuss-israeli-sovereignty/?utm_source=

, JNS

Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), formerly head of the House Freedom Caucus, was joined by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee and head of the Republican Study Committee, and their wives toured Israel this week on a trip organized by the Yes! Israel Project, an organization that introduces political and business leaders to places often avoided by mainstream American Jewish organizations.

In July, Jordan tweeted in favor of a House resolution condemning BDS, saying “Israel is America’s closest ally and great friend. But radical left members of Congress are trying to take down a resolution in support of Israel.”

In January, Johnson tweeted an article about the impending publication of the Mideast peace proposal, adding the psalm to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

During the trip, Johnson also expressed support for Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

“I support the Trump [Mideast] deal that recognizes the Jewish connection to your homeland,” he told JNS. “It is important for Israel to apply sovereignty to these lands as soon as possible. We have reservations about the so-called ‘two-state solution’ that would establish a Palestinian state.”

From the Temple Mount to the Judean Hills

The congressmen began their tour on the “Heritage Trail” in Beersheva on Monday, where they learned about the biblical Abraham and the ties of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. They then traveled to Maon Farm in the southern Hebron hills, and then to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Georgetown Library Bans ‘Offensive’ Books Catherine Smith

By on February 19th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/18/georgetown-library-bans-offensive-books/

Georgetown University officials removed and banned “all but a few books” from the McCarthy and Reynolds libraries that students have deemed “offensive,” Breitbart reports.

According to a report by the College Fix, Georgetown University officials have removed hundreds of books from campus libraries after students argued that they were riddled with bigotry and the extremely vulnerable students found them unacceptable and offensive.

Student Alexandra Bowman said she noticed a book “prominently featured a Native American on its cover” and therefore she complained to the administration. Shortly thereafter, Georgetown’s Reynolds and McCarthy libraries were almost cleared out.

“While some were simply raucous crime noir murder mysteries representative of the literary and cultural time in which they were written, other books included extremely problematic and damaging elements, including the glamorization of rape, including that of underage girls,” Bowman said in a short comment. “Completely naked women of all races were frequently featured on these books’ covers. Further, many books fetishized young nonwhite women.”

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Orwellian Word Games From Los Angeles to New York, progressive elected officials abuse language in an attempt to change how we think. Seth Barron

By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.city-journal.org/progressive-elected-officials-abuse-language

A new law in California bans the use, in official documents, of the term “at risk” to describe youth identified by social workers, teachers, or the courts as likely to drop out of school, join a gang, or go to jail. Los Angeles assemblyman Reginald B. Jones-Sawyer, who sponsored the legislation, explained that “words matter.” By designating children as “at risk,” he says, “we automatically put them in the school-to-prison pipeline. Many of them, when labeled that, are not able to exceed above that.”

The idea that the term “at risk” assigns outcomes, rather than describes unfortunate possibilities, grants social workers deterministic authority most would be surprised to learn they possess. Contrary to Jones-Sawyer’s characterization of “at risk” as consigning kids to roles as outcasts or losers, the term originated in the 1980s as a less harsh and stigmatizing substitute for “juvenile delinquent,” to describe vulnerable children who seemed to be on the wrong path. The idea of young people at “risk” of social failure buttressed the idea that government services and support could ameliorate or hedge these risks.

Instead of calling vulnerable kids “at risk,” says Jones-Sawyer, “we’re going to call them ‘at-promise’ because they’re the promise of the future.” The replacement term—the only expression now legally permitted in California education and penal codes—has no independent meaning in English. Usually we call people about whom we’re hopeful “promising.” The language of the statute is contradictory and garbled, too. “For purposes of this article, ‘at-promise pupil’ means a pupil enrolled in high school who is at risk of dropping out of school, as indicated by at least three of the following criteria: Past record of irregular attendance . . . Past record of underachievement . . . Past record of low motivation or a disinterest in the regular school program.” In other words, “at-promise” kids are underachievers with little interest in school, who are “at risk of dropping out.” Without casting these kids as lost causes, in what sense are they “at promise,” and to what extent does designating them as “at risk” make them so?

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