NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

True Privilege CVS launches a program that forces hourly employees to discuss their “privilege.” Christopher F. Rufo

Posted By on September 24th, 2021

https://www.city-journal.org/inside-cvs-health-corporations-racial-reeducation-program

Last year, CVS Health Corporation—the largest pharmacy chain in the United States—paid then-CEO Larry Merlo almost 618 times the median company wage, while simultaneously launching a mandatory “antiracist” training program for hourly employees to deconstruct their “privilege.”

I have received whistleblower documents from inside CVS that reveal the company’s extensive race-reeducation program, which is built on the core tenets of critical race theory, including “intersectionality,” “white privilege,” and “unconscious bias.”

As a keynote for the initiative, Merlo—who has since retired—hosted a conversation with Boston University professor Ibram Kendi, who told 25,000 CVS employees that “to be born in [the United States] is to literally have racist ideas rain on our head consistently and constantly.” Kendi argued that Americans are “walking through society completely soaked in racist ideas,” including children as young as two to three years old. “Our kids are basically functioning on racist ideas, choosing who to play with based on the kid’s skin color,” Kendi said. The solution, in part, is to “diagnose” employees as “racist” in order to help them become “antiracist” and “stop hurting somebody else.”

A series of related training modules instructed employees to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves according to their “privilege.” The exercise is grounded in the theory of intersectionality, which holds that individuals can be reduced to a network of overlapping identities that determine their position on the social hierarchy, with privileged groups occupying the “oppressor” role and unprivileged groups in the “oppressed” role. The training asked CVS employees to circle their identities—including race, gender, sexuality, and religion—and then reflect on their “privilege” during the discussion. Examples of privilege, according to a checklist, included “celebrat[ing] Christmas,” “hav[ing] a name that is easy to pronounce,” “feel[ing] safe in your neighborhood at night,” and “feel[ing] confident in my leadership style.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Tied to Alleged 2016 Clinton Scheme to Co-Opt the CIA and FBI to Tar Trump By Paul Sperry

Posted By on September 24th, 2021

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/09/23/biden_security_adviser_sullivan_tied_to_16_

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan figures prominently in a grand jury investigation run by Special Counsel John Durham into an alleged 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign scheme to use both the FBI and CIA to tar Donald Trump as a colluder with Russia, according to people familiar with the criminal probe, which they say has broadened into a conspiracy case.

Sullivan is facing scrutiny, sources say, over potentially false statements he made about his involvement in the effort, which continued after the election and into 2017. As a senior foreign policy adviser to Clinton, Sullivan spearheaded what was known inside her campaign as a “confidential project” to link Trump to the Kremlin through dubious email-server records provided to the agencies, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Last week, Michael A. Sussmann, a partner in Perkins Coie, a law firm representing the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of making false statements to the FBI about his clients and their motives behind planting the rumor, at the highest levels of the FBI, of a secret Trump-Russia server. After a months-long investigation, the FBI found no merit to the rumor.

The grand jury indicated in its lengthy indictment that several people were involved in the alleged conspiracy to mislead the FBI and trigger an investigation of the Republican presidential candidate — including Sullivan, who was described by his campaign position but not identified by name.

The Clinton campaign project, these sources say, also involved compiling a “digital dossier” on several Trump campaign officials – including Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page. This effort exploited highly sensitive, nonpublic Internet data related to their personal email communications and web-browsing, known as Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses.

To mine the data, the Clinton campaign enlisted a team of Beltway computer contractors as well as university researchers with security clearance who often collaborate with the FBI and the intelligence community. They worked from a five-page campaign document called the “Trump Associates List.”

The tech group also pulled logs purportedly from servers for a Russian bank and Trump Tower, and the campaign provided the data to the FBI on two thumb drives, along with three “white papers” that claimed the data indicated the Trump campaign was secretly communicating with Moscow through a server in Trump Tower and the Alfa Bank in Russia. Based on the material, the FBI opened at least one investigation, adding to several others it had already initiated targeting the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrats Back on Their Heels, As Biden’s Polling Plunges and Manchin Presses for His ‘Strategic Pause’ By Lawrence Kudlow

Posted By on September 24th, 2021

https://www.nysun.com/national/democrats-are-back-on-the-heels-as-bidens-polling/91669/

With President Biden’s polls once again plunging and wide gaps in the Democratic Party over spending and taxing along with some serious grassroots opposition from groups like the save America coalition, I really do believe the Democrats are on the run. They’re back on their heels. They can’t get their story straight.

Again this evening I express my support for Senator Joe Manchin’s “strategic pause” to carry over big budget deals until the spring of 2022. Our motives might be a bit different, but our goals right now are similar. If the Democratic budget resolution doesn’t get through reconciliation until then — which admittingly is an improbable longshot — then the whole thing will die.

I do believe public Democratic weakness after the Biden meetings and the nonsensical press conference with Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi have a lot to do with the huge stock market rally today.

While insiders tell me that President Biden told democratic leaders to come up with their own topline on spending and, I presume taxes, at this point that project looks impossible with Mr. Manchin at between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, the Bernie Sanders budget scored at $3.5 trillion, and the actual gimmick-free budget scored at about $5.5 trillion.

That’s some spread.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Iron Dome woes, and Yair Lapid in la-la land By Ruthie Blum   

Posted By on September 24th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/iron-dome-woes-and-yair-lapid-in-la-la-land-opinion-680176
Israel should be deeply concerned by the victory that was achieved on Tuesday by the progressive wing of the US House of Representatives. Rather than making excuses for the removal of a $1 billion provision for Israel’s Iron Dome defense system from a major funding bill, Jerusalem would do well to grasp the significance of the goings-on behind the scenes in Washington.

Unfortunately, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s response indicates that the new Israeli government is still clinging to a dangerous fantasy with two related prongs. One is that former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to blame for the “rift” created between the Democratic Party and the Jewish state. The other is that the administration of President Joe Biden is just as pro-Israel, if not more, than its predecessor, headed by Donald Trump.

The irony is inescapable.

In the first place, if anything proves that Bibi isn’t to blame for the radicalization of the American Left and its increasingly open hostility to Israel, it’s the move against the Iron Dome. The maneuver was clearly spearheaded by the so-called Squad, made up of core members Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, and joined by Jamaa Bowman and Cori Bush.

Thus far, these paragons of progressive virtue have been mum about their role in the Iron Dome issue, but they have been clear from the outset about their agenda in general and their attitude toward Israel in particular. Nor have they hidden their view of Biden as a puppet put in place initially to oust Trump, and then to sit back and not get in their way. This week, they showed that they meant business.

Secondly, Biden’s supposedly stellar record on Israel is irrelevant. He thinks that a Palestinian state is crucial for Mideast peace, and continues to push for a return to the nuclear deal with Iran.

That the anti-Netanyahu crowd in Israel was buoyed by the US president’s meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the White House last month is equally beside the point. The little get-together was briefly postponed due to the slaughter of 13 US servicemen and dozens of Afghans in Kabul – thanks to Biden’s hasty retreat and the Taliban’s immediate takeover.

With that debacle in the background, his pledge of “unwavering commitment to Israel’s security,” including “full support [for] replenishing Israel’s Iron Dome system,” rang as hollow as his vow to “ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.”
What really reverberated, however, was the caveat that “we’re putting diplomacy first and seeing where that takes us.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Dr. Scott Atlas on Vaccine Mandates for Children, Natural Immunity, and Florida’s COVID-19 Surge

Posted By on September 24th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/dr-scott-atlas-on-vaccine-mandates-for-children-natural-immunity-and-floridas-covid-19-surge_4013490.html

“To me, it’s unconscionable that a society uses its children as shields for adults. Children do not have a significant risk from this illness… Are we [as] a society, a civilization … going to inject our children with an experimental drug that they don’t have a significant benefit from, to shield ourselves?”
—Dr. Scott Atlas

In this episode, we sit down with public health policy expert Dr. Scott Atlas to discuss the ethics of vaccinating children, especially given that data has shown children do not significantly spread the virus compared to adults.

We also discuss the underlying reasons behind the recent COVID-19 surge in Florida as well as the efficacy of natural immunity.

Dr. Atlas is the author of “A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America,” which is set to be released on Nov. 23.

Subscribe to the American Thought Leaders newsletter so you never miss an episode.

Follow EpochTV on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpochTVus
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpochTVus
Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/EpochTV

POLITICS Comments turned off

MORE HEADLINES ON RITCHIE TORRES

Posted By on September 23rd, 2021

Can You Be a Progressive and Support Israel? A Conversation with Bronx Democrat Ritchie Torres. Bari Weiss

By Ruth King (Edit) on May 19th, 2021

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/can-you-be-a-progressive-and-support?token=

Ritchie Torres is a freshman congressman representing New York’s 15th district. He grew up in a public housing project in the Bronx, brought up by a single mother who raised him, his sister, and his twin brother on minimum wage. Upon his swearing-in, Ritchie became the first openly gay Afro-Latin American member of Congress. He is a staunch progressive, and has been vocal about improving public housing, advocating for LGBT businesses, and addressing child poverty.

He is also an outspoken supporter of Israel, a position that 10 years ago wouldn’t have been notable, but in today’s progressive wing of the Democratic Party has made him a curiosity — sort of like a Trumper who doesn’t want a recount.

Rep. Torres’s position on Israel has made him a target on social media, where he has been smeared as a supporter of ethnic cleansing and genocide. It has also opened him up to criticism from his colleagues.

To me, he looks a bit like a single man standing alone against a cultural tsunami. Does he feel that way? I called Rep. Torres yesterday to find out.

Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BW: Last week you said: “I am here to affirm, as a member of Congress — one who intends to be here for a long time — that I have an unwavering commitment to both the sovereignty and security of Israel as a Jewish state.” That kind of statement used to be par for the course for Democratic politicians. That no longer seems to me to be the case. What happened?

RT: It feels like we are living through a tectonic shift. We’re increasingly living in a world where support for Israel as a Jewish state, support for the American Israeli relationship, support even for a two state solution, is becoming heresy. And BDS is in danger of becoming orthodoxy, particularly within progressive circles.

BW: Why has that view become heretical? How did we get to this point?
Continue reading →
DAVID’S SLINGSHOT DPS, NATIONAL NEWS USA & OPINION Comments turned off
‘Truth,’ as Well as Israel, Is ‘Under Siege’ From Hamas, Declares NY Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres in Solidarity Speech

By Ruth King (Edit) on May 14th, 2021

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/05/13/truth-as-well-as-israel-is-under-siege-from-hamas-declares-ny-democratic-rep-ritchie-torres-in-solidarity-speech/

Progressive Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York has delivered an impassioned defense of the State of Israel in the face of the escalating military threat from Hamas.

Speaking to a virtual UJA event on Wednesday night, the 33-year-old East Bronx native — whose 15th district includes the South Bronx and borders that of fellow Democrat and frequent Israel critic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — restated his “unwavering commitment to both the sovereignty and security of Israel as a Jewish State.”

Torres remarked that “what is under siege is not only Israel.”

He continued: “What is under siege is the truth itself. Circulating on social media is a vicious lie — a lie that deceptively reframes the terrorism of Hamas as self-defense and deceptively reframes the self-defense of Israel as terrorism. Increasingly, we seem to live in an Orwellian universe where the truth no longer matters.”

Torres — who has at times faced criticism from colleagues on the left of the Democratic Party because of his stalwart backing for Israel — then noted that “support for Israel, especially in moments like these, is not for the faint-hearted.”
Continue reading →
ELECTIONS Comments turned off
Rep. Elect Ritchie Torres, a Progressive Democrat, Rips AOC’s Israel Hating ‘Squad’

By Ruth King (Edit) on December 23rd, 2020

https://www.tuskerdaily.com/rep-elect-ritchie-torres-a-progressive-democrat-rips-aocs-israel-hating-squad/

Ritchie Torres may be a progressive Democrat, but he won’t be signing up with AOC and her band of mental midget misfits which Nancy Pelosi nicknamed the ‘Squad’.

Ritchie Torres, is going to Washington next month to represent the South Bronx in Congress.

But despite his being a Bernie Sanders loving Progressive Democrat, he says you won’t see him paling around with Democratic Socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib anytime soon.

Torres,32, cited his strong support for Israel as a primary distinction between ‘the Squad’ and true progressives like himself.

“I came to observe that there are activists who have a visceral hatred for Israel as though it were the root of all evil.

The act of singling out Israel as BDS [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] has done is the definition of discrimination.”

Torres, who has served on the New York City Council since 2013, says he was moved by trips to Israel in 2015 and 2017.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden exposes his dementia to the world By James A. Nollet

Posted By on September 23rd, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/biden_exposes_his_dementia_to_the_world.

The week of the autumnal equinox in New York City is Gridlock Week because of all the nonstop, non-moving traffic jams caused by the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.  American presidents have long given speeches there during opening week, and this year was no exception, when President Biden dropped in to show the entire world what we have long known inside the United States — that he is suffering from dementia and diminishing mental capacity. 

New York’s clogged traffic woes reflect the mental state of New York’s and America’s president.

Biden cannot function without either a teleprompter or pre-printed cheat sheets, which tell him how to meet and greet his peers. 

As Andrea Widburg noted, Biden cannot even so much as say “hello” to Boris Johnson without reading it first from his cheat sheet.

This was likewise evident the day before when Biden met with the U.N. secretary-general.  Biden had a televised meet ‘n’ greet session with the secretary-general during which he only spoke for about two minutes on general themes, and couldn’t get through it without his cheat sheets.  Naturally, the secretary-general, being of sound mind and reasonably lucid, needed no such notes at all to make his own reply.

Biden made an incredible claim about climate change.

0:41 — … And dealing with the gravest threat to humanity we’ve ever seen which is the whole climate crisis we’re gonna we’re un we’re undergoing that can only be met with global solutions …

The remark is so stupid that it is actually obscene.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Civilization Requires Deterrence  Deterrence at home and abroad is now dangerously lost.  By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on September 23rd, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/09/22/civilization-requires-deterrence/

Deterrence is the ancient ability to scare somebody off from hurting you, your friends, or your interests—without a major war. 

Desire peace? Then be prepared for war. Or so the Romans believed.

It’s an easily understood concept in the abstract. But deterrence still remains a mystical quality in the concrete since it is only acquired with difficulty and yet easily forfeited. 

The tired democracies of the 1930s learned that lesson when they kept acquiescing to Hitler’s serial aggressions. 

Hitler’s Germany foolishly later attacked a far stronger Soviet Union in 1941, given Moscow’s lost deterrence after its lackluster performances in Poland and Finland, its pact with the Nazis, and its recent purges of its own officer corps. 

Deterrence is omnipresent and also applies well beyond matters of war and peace. The current crime wave of murder and violent assault in our major cities is the wage of loud efforts to defund the police and contextualize crimes as somehow society’s rather than the criminal’s fault. 

As a result, lawbreakers now believe there is a good chance that robbing people or hurting or killing them might result in monetary gain or at least bloody satisfaction. They no longer fear a likely sentence of 30 years in prison. So, they see little risk in hurting people. And innocents suffer.

With a border wall, an end to catch and release, and tough jawboning of the Mexican and Central American governments, a new American deterrent stance in 2019-20 discouraged once unstoppable waves of illegal immigrants. 

Northern bound migrants knew that even if they reached and crossed the border, there was a good chance all such effort would be for naught, given quick apprehension and deportation. 

So, in their rational calculations, illegal aliens waited at home for less deterrent times. And they found them when Joe Biden stopped construction on the wall, renewed catch and release, and eased pressures on Mexico to interrupt caravans headed northward. 

Abroad, Donald Trump restored the strategic deterrence lost by his predecessor.

Barack Obama had dismissed the murderous ISIS as “JVs”—and they thrived. He shrugged when China stole territory in the South China sea to build military bases. He dismantled missile defense in Europe to coax Vladimir Putin to behave during his own 2012 reelection campaign. 

Obama loudly announced redlines in Syria while never intending to enforce them. He gave the Taliban back their incarcerated terrorist leaders in exchange for the return of the American deserter Bowe Bergdahl. And he sent the Iranians nocturnal cash to coax them to conclude an appeasing Iran Deal. Aggression followed as U.S. deterrence eroded.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Even With Climate Change, the World Isn’t Doomed Humanity has overcome far greater problems before and can do so again.By Bjorn Lomborg

Posted By on September 23rd, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-world-doomed-gdp-warming-earth-11632338084?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Editor’s note: As November’s global climate conference in Glasgow draws near, important facts about climate change don’t always make it into the dominant media coverage. We’re here to help. Each Thursday contributor Bjorn Lomborg will provide some important background so readers can have a better understanding of the true effects of climate change and the real costs of climate policy.

Young people across the world are terrified of climate change, according to a forthcoming Lancet study. More than 45% of people 16 to 25 in the 10 countries surveyed are so worried that it affects their daily life and functioning. Almost half of young Americans believe “humanity is doomed,” and two-thirds think “the future is frightening.” But while climate change is a problem, panic is unwarranted.

The data show that humanity has overcome much larger threats over the past century. In 1900, if humanity had gotten rid of air pollution—mostly indoor pollution caused by smoky fuels like wood and dung—the benefit would have been equivalent to global gross domestic product rising 23%. To a young audience, that might look like an insufficient measure of well-being, but higher GDP means better health, lower mortality, greater access to education and in general a better standard of living. By 2050 the problem of air pollution will be mostly solved. And that’s only one of the many issues humanity has shorn down over the last 100 years, according to data 21 top economists and I gathered.

The challenge climate change poses, both to the environment and society, looks rather small compared to those humanity has already met. Noble Prize-winning climate economist William Nordhaus has shown that a 6.3-degree Fahrenheit rise in world temperatures by 2100—which is probable if policy makers do little to stop climate change—would cost only 2.8% of global GDP a year. The United Nations’ latest estimate puts it even lower at 2.6% of GDP for a 6.6-degree Fahrenheit increase.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden’s Border Botch Is No Accident

Posted By on September 23rd, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/23/bidens-border-botch-is-no-accident/

The massive influx of illegal immigrants on our nation’s southern border almost defies description. The Biden administration has actively sought this disaster in a bid to undermine the integrity of both our border and our nation’s rule of law. President Joe Biden is responsible for this human crisis, and should answer for it.

We’re already seeing 200,000 or so people each month reach our borders. But things have changed dramatically.

After the July 22 assassination of Haiti’s president, some 15,000 Haitians showed up, many in Del Rio, Texas, swelling the ranks of the thousands of Central Americans and Mexican citizens already at the border waiting to come across. Another 20,000 or so Haitians might soon be on their way from South America, according to NBC News.

Meanwhile, thousands more have already been released into the U.S., with little screening, while just a relative handful have been sent back to their country, according to news reports.

As the Associated Press noted:

Many Haitian migrants in Del Rio are being released in the United States, according to two U.S. officials, undercutting the Biden administration’s public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion to Haiti.

Haitians have been freed on a ‘very, very large scale’ in recent days, one official said Tuesday. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter and thus spoke on condition of anonymity, put the figure in the thousands.

AP adds that “Criteria for deciding who is flown to Haiti and who is released in the U.S. are a mystery,” but it’s really not. The administration has decided not to send families with children, or children alone, back to Haiti. So they’re appearing in droves.

This may just be the tip of a very large iceberg. Biden’s plans include doubling the current level of refugees admitted each year to 125,000.