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Ruth King

CROSSING A LINE IN COVERAGE OF THE TEL-AVIV CARNAGE: RUTHIE BLUM

https://www.jns.org/opinion/crossing-a-line-in-coverage-of-the-tel-aviv-carnage/

Reporters rushed to Tel Aviv on Thursday night to cover the shooting at the Ilka pub on Dizengoff Street. Less than half an hour after the deadly spree, cameras and microphones flooded the vicinity, and the whole country tuned in to watch.
The hunger for information surrounding the event, coupled with a touch of voyeurism, was unavoidable. The gunning down of young people enjoying a night out at a bar would be cause for fear and curiosity under any circumstances. But the fact that this was the fourth such act of “lone wolf” carnage carried out in the Jewish state in little more than two weeks—following fatal assaults in Bnei Brak on March 29, Hadera on March 27 and Beersheva on March 22—made the entire episode even worse.
As if the incident in itself weren’t horrifying enough—particularly as Tel Aviv residents were instructed to hole up in their homes and the city’s public transportation was halted—the terrorist was on the loose. In fact, he would remain at large until early the next morning, when he was finally located in Jaffa and eliminated during a battle with Israeli forces.
This was what set apart the Tel Aviv attack from the other three. In each previous case, the terrorist was neutralized while in the process of murdering his victims. Here, the perpetrator, 28-year-old Ra’ad Hazem from Jenin, managed to slip away among the throngs of diners and passersby, some busy administering first aid to the wounded and others fleeing for dear life.
The pandemonium was palpable as various units of the Israel Police, Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) arrived en masse to scour the area for the terrorist. This was compounded by the presence of the press.
Until the TV channels ended their special broadcasts at 2 a.m., they all had reporters on the scene, who were interfering with the men and women in uniform. One correspondent went as far as to tail soldiers on a door-to-door search for the terrorist, with a camera rolling on their faces and weapons.
Another actually stepped over police tape with her cameraman, so that he could zoom in on the broken glass and blood stains on the pavement outside the pub. As a police officer grabbed her arm and pulled her away, she continued her breathless babbling.

THE REAL STORY OF CLINTON’S SHADY DEALS WITH CHINA : PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY (1998)

https://eagleforum.org/psr/1998/june98/psrjune98.html

The China Connection Is the Real Scandal

Now we know why the Democrats were so vicious in their attacks on Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN). Theirs were the committees that were closing in on the China connection, the scandal that can bring down the Clinton presidency, the scandal that has made Congressmen start to utter the T word (treason). A series of front-page news stories in the New York Times (May 15, 16, 17) essentially vindicated Thompson’s charge that the Chinese Communist Government tried to influence the 1996 U.S. election with campaign contributions.

Bill Clinton’s friend and ubiquitous Democratic fundraiser Johnny Chung told Federal investigators that he funneled nearly $100,000 from the Communist Chinese military to the Democratic campaign in the summer of 1996. The money was handed to Chung by the daughter of the top commander of China’s People’s Liberation Army, General Liu Huaqing, who was also one of the top five members of the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling Politburo.

Chung’s liaisons with the Clinton Administration were so cozy that he was able to arrange for the daughter, who goes by the name of Lt. Col. Liu Chaoying, to get a speedy visa and come to America to be photographed with Clinton on July 22, 1996. She is what is called a “princeling,” one of the privileged offspring of China’s ruling elite. In addition to her title as Lieutenant Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, she is a senior manager and vice president for China Aerospace International Holdings, which is the Hong Kong arm of China Aerospace Corporation, a state-owned jewel in China’s military-industrial complex, with interests in satellite technology, rocket launches, and missiles.

Johnny Chung told Federal investigators that Col. Liu actually gave him $300,000, which she said originated with China’s military’s intelligence arm, and told him to use the money for Democratic campaign contributions. He apparently kept $200,000 for his “businesses.” Soon after the picture-taking fundraiser, Col. Liu had Chung open a California branch of Marswell Investing, another of her Hong Kong enterprises, whose chief “business” was parking Chinese money in the United States. She also invested $300,000 in Chung’s facsimile business. Chung was quite a hustler; he visited Clinton’s White House 49 times.

After fundraising investigations began last year, the Democratic National Committee returned $366,000 to Chung which were suspected of being illegal foreign contributions. Chung has pleaded guilty to campaign-related bank and tax fraud.

I Tried to Put Russia on Another Path Opinion by Bill Clinton

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/i-tried-to-put-russia-on-another-path/ar-AAVYglE

“This whole column is a paean to himself and Madeleine Albright, and the sorry excuse for a policy team:  Secretary of State Warren Christopher; National Security Adviser Tony Lake; his successor, Sandy Berger; and  Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.  Shameless Clinton was busy keeping his zipper up while engaging with Communist China.”

When I first became president, I said that I would support Russian President Boris Yeltsin in his efforts to build a good economy and a functioning democracy after the dissolution of the Soviet Union—but I would also support an expansion of NATO to include former Warsaw Pact members and post-Soviet states. My policy was to work for the best while preparing for the worst. I was worried not about a Russian return to communism, but about a return to ultranationalism, replacing democracy and cooperation with aspirations to empire, like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. I didn’t believe Yeltsin would do that, but who knew what would come after him?

If Russia stayed on a path toward democracy and cooperation, we would all be together in meeting the security challenges of our time: terrorism; ethnic, religious, and other tribal conflicts; and the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. If Russia chose to revert to ultranationalist imperialism, an enlarged NATO and a growing European Union would bolster the continent’s security. Near the end of my second term, in 1999, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined NATO despite Russian opposition. The alliance gained 11 more members under subsequent administrations, again over Russian objections.

Lately, NATO expansion has been criticized in some quarters for provoking Russia and even laying the groundwork for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The expansion certainly was a consequential decision, one that I continue to believe was correct.

Cultural indoctrination war by Byron York

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/cultural-indoctrination-war

CULTURAL INDOCTRINATION WAR. Recently, leftist activists and their allies in the media had a big success labeling a bill passed by the Florida Legislature as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. They claimed, without evidence, that the Republican-sponsored bill would ban the mention of homosexuality in Florida schools. In fact, the bill, now signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, prohibited “classroom instruction” on “sexual orientation or gender identity” by teachers or other adults in kindergarten through third grade. It also said such instruction after third grade must be “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.” In other words, it specifically allowed classroom instruction on such matters after third grade. Nevertheless, LGBTQIA+ activists called the bill “Don’t Say Gay.” Many media outlets and commentators picked it up immediately.

Now, just a month later, the same alliance is at it again. The Alabama Legislature has passed a bill banning hormone treatment, puberty blockers, and surgery for minors who say they want to change their gender. “Minors, and often their parents, are unable to comprehend and fully appreciate the risk and life implications, including permanent sterility, that result from the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures,” the Republican-sponsored bill says. “For these reasons, the decision to pursue a course of hormonal and surgical interventions to address a discordance between the individual’s sex and sense of identity should not be presented to or determined for minors who are incapable of comprehending the negative implications and life-course difficulties attending to these interventions.” A “minor,” for the purposes of this measure, is defined in Alabama law as “a person who is under 19 years of age.”

So the law bans certain drastic treatments and procedures for children 18 and under. And this is the headline of the New York Times story reporting it: “Alabama Lawmakers Approve Ban on Medical Care for Transgender Youth.”

Game-Changing Weapons Begin to Flow to Ukraine After NATO Emergency Meeting

https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/04/08/game-changing-weapons-begin-to-flow-to-ukraine-after-nato-emergency-meeting-n547253

On Thursday, NATO held an emergency meeting about Russia’s increasingly horrific and atrocity-filled invasion of Ukraine. However, unlike most NATO meetings, this one was substantive.

For starters, the attendees were not only NATO nations; there were also observers present: the European Union, Sweden, Finland, Georgia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Ukraine. If Putin was afraid of being surrounded before, he should take a quick look at his map now (just a reminder that Japan and Russia still have an unresolved border dispute, see Russia conducts military exercises in disputed islands).  As if to validate the stereotype of the Germans being either “at your throat or at your heel,” the German Foreign Minister showed he was definitely at Putin’s heel by leaving early.

The main issue on the table was weaponry. Quantity, quality, and purpose were all concerns. To date, the weaponry supplied to Ukraine has been defensive, and the defensive weaponry has been careful not to tip the balance of power. At best, Ukraine could achieve a Russian withdrawal to February 23 lines in most of the country while going to a 1916-style stalemate in Donbas that would give up an extensive amount of territory and reward Putin’s land grab strategy. It was reminiscent of the Star Trek episode, “A Private Little War.”

To underscore the theme, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister made it very clear what he wanted.

Biden Administration, EU and Iran’s Mullahs: Historical Mistake Repeating Itself by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18404/biden-administration-eu-iran-mullahs

The Biden administration and the EU do not need to go too far back to see the outcome of those appeasement policies and the nuclear deal with Iran. Its theocratic regime became more determined than ever, as an oblation, an offering to God, to annihilate Israel.

Right after the nuclear deal, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who enjoys the final say in Iran’s domestic and foreign policy, published a 416-page book, titled “Palestine,” with a cover featuring a map of the Middle East with no Israel in it.

In the book, Khamenei details his plan of destroying Israel and characterized himself as “the flag bearer of Jihad to liberate Jerusalem.”

The more the Islamic Republic became empowered due to the appeasement it received, the more it boasted that it could destroy Israel “in less than eight minutes.”

“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it,” Winston Churchill said. This is exactly what is happening as the Biden administration and the European Union continue relentlessly to appease the ruling mullahs of Iran and attempting to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

The Biden administration and the European Union appear to believe that rewarding the Iranian regime will make it act as a constructive and modern nation-state. This idea first surfaced and was acted upon during the administration of then US President Barack Obama, who, on concluding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, pointed out that he was “confident” it would “meet the national security needs of the United States and our allies”.

England’s NHS promoting prostitution to pay for gender transition treatments By Eric Utter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/englands_nhs_promoting_prostitution_to_pay_for_gender_transition_treatments.html

One of England’s National Health Service-funded clinics is promoting prostitution as a way for transgender people to pay for their transition treatments.

Being a sex worker ‘can be useful and sometimes empowering’, according to a guide produced by CliniQ, a sexual counselling service for transgender people at King’s College Hospital in London. It adds: ‘It can help us pay for parts of our transition.’

The booklet by CliniQ, which is part-funded by King’s College NHS Trust and three London local authorities, also suggests that transgender men – people born in female bodies but transitioning to male – can hide the fact that they are trans when visiting gay sex parties.

That’s a great use of taxpayer’s money! The NHS and some in the LGBTQ community may think this is a capital idea, or even a “twofer.” In truth, however, it is using other people’s hard-earned tax dollars to promote an amoral way to earn money for the desecration of one’s body, which is an affront to God.

There is nothing healthy about that. Will Jolly Olde England’s NHS soon recommend that folks start selling illicit drugs as a way to pay for their stays in substance abuse rehabilitation clinics? Or try their hand at a roulette table and put everything on “red” in hopes of paying off their gambling debt? Perhaps the NHS would suggest people pay their parking tickets with money obtained by robbing a bank?

Chilling Effort to Destroy Trump Lawyers Epitomizes America’s War on Wrongthink Benjamin Weingarten

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chilling-effort-to-destroy-trump-lawyers-epitomizes-americas-war-on-wrongthink_4388006.html?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=copy&rs=0&&slsuccess=1

Jan. 6 served as the catalyzing event for America’s ruling class to wage a War on Wrongthink against dissenters from its orthodoxy under the banner of “defending democracy.”

At its narrowest, the Capitol breach spawned the Department of Justice’s legal pursuit and prosecution of participants as something approximating terrorists, and the January 6th Committee’s political pursuit and persecution of the conservative movement itself as terroristic.

One can draw a line from this dual-track effort to the never-ending push on the left to lock up President Donald Trump, force Justice Clarence Thomas off the bench, disqualify members of Congress from even running in 2022, and now, in an overlooked but uniquely sinister element of this ever-expanding jihad, for a group called “The 65 Project” to ruin the lives of conservative lawyers.

Unpopular though litigators might be, this vengeful, dangerous, and un-American manifestation of the War on Wrongthink should concern all Americans.

As The 65 Project, led in part by progressive operative and founder of the anti-conservative media “watchdog” Media Matters, David Brock, announced at its launch in a series of tweets:

We’ve come together to hold accountable the Big Lie Lawyers behind fraudulent lawsuits intended to overturn election results, and those that otherwise helped fuel insurrection.

Following Biden’s 2020 victory, an army of Big Lie Lawyers filed 65 lawsuits based on lies, in a malicious attempt to subvert democracy. They failed.

Men Accused of Impersonating DHS Agents Have Possible Ties to Iranian Intelligence By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/04/08/men-accused-of-impersonating-dhs-agents-have-possible-ties-to-iranian-intelligence-n1588109

The bizarre case of two men who posed as DHS agents, ingratiating themselves with four Secret Service employees, took an unexpected turn when it was revealed that the men are under investigation for having possible ties to Iranian intelligence — specifically, the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Investigators allege that Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, posed as various officers and employees of the U.S. government, including members of federal law enforcement agencies, since February 2020. During that time, they got close to four Secret Service agents — including an agent assigned to Jill Biden’s protection detail — by supplying them with perks and gifts, including the use of a $40,000-a-year apartment.

The agents have since vacated the apartment, so investigators aren’t sure if their conversations were bugged or not.

The end game of the fraudsters is still unknown, although the ties to the IRGC would suggest that terrorism was a distinct possibility.

CBSNews:

Prosecutors said Thursday that Ali told witnesses he had connections to the Pakistani Intelligence Service, which the government said it has not yet verified. Prosecutors also said  the government recovered his passport containing three “older” Pakistani visas and two Iranian visas from 2019 and January 2020. There was an indication on Ali’s Iranian visa that he had entered that country at some point, prosecutors said, although they did not specify when.

Will Joe Biden Bring the U.S. Down With Him? David Solway ****

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/david-solway-2/2022/04/08/will-joe-biden-bring-the-u-s-down-with-him-n1588266

Joe Biden does not seem steady on his feet or clear in his mind, and at this stage the same might be said for the country he nominally governs. His unforced errors, some of which have an oddly deliberate ring to them, may have rendered the November midterms and the 2024 presidential election entirely moot. Whether the nation can remain socially, politically, and economically intact even for the next few months is an open question. Biden is a fool, but there is cunning in his folly. A frugal mind may be capable of great wiliness, and blunders may curiously work in an unintentional way to promote intentional policy. Many of Biden’s gaffes and much of his political mischief fit seamlessly into the Democrat plan for the nation. The result may not be wise, but as poet Thomas Gray wittily wrote, “where ignorance is bliss,/’Tis folly to be wise.”

There are two sorts of gaffes or blunders which Biden is prone to make: the kind that are plainly indicative of cognitive decline, and those that dovetail neatly into Democrat, neo-Liberal policy to being in a new world order associated with the Great Reset. This entails the extension of NATO, regime change in Russia, the collapse of the American middle class, and the installation of oligarchic rule in the U.S.
The elements of the master plan are obvious.

The situation on the southern border is an avowed catastrophe, for which the clueless Kamala Harris has taken much of the blame. She has been roundly condemned for failing in her duty to attend to the security breach, which was her remit, when it should have been obvious that abandoning border security was the purpose all along. Doing nothing, she did her job. Biden’s recent announcement ending the Title 42 Illegal Immigration Rule, which forced the return of more than half of illegal immigrants, is proof positive of the Democrats’ abiding intention to destabilize the nation.
When it comes to energy, the disaster compounds. Biden’s Executive Order on the first day of his assuming office canceling the Keystone XL pipeline project, and his suspending oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters, has ensured that American energy independence has become a thing of the past, that energy prices would soar, and that rampant inflation would devastate the domestic economy. Skyrocketing gas prices are merely the canary in the coal mine. Blaming Russia is a patent “red” herring.
As for foreign policy, Biden was asleep at the helm, or just as likely he was steering it hard to port rather than sagely to starboard. The U.S.-backed plan to sanction Russia, place an embargo on its oil shipments, seize and block Russian banking accounts and expel the country from the SWIFT international banking and messaging network for its incursion into Ukraine was a misconception of the first magnitude. The result is undeniable: increased inflation on the home front, the strengthening of the Russian ruble, and the isolation of Russia from the West which has enabled it to cement its trade relationships with non-compliant nations like China, India, and the Arab bloc, as well as to encourage it to replace its reliance on SWIFT by increasing its proximity to the Chinese-sponsored alternative, its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, or CIPS.