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The slippery semantics of Anthony Fauci Fauci’s absolutist answer on gain-of-function research from May has proven to be false Stephen Miller

Posted By on October 27th, 2021

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/slippery-semantics-anthony-fauci-gain-function-coronavirus/

“I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I’m fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China. However, I will repeat again: the NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded ‘gain-of-function’ research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” 

That was Dr Anthony Fauci during a May 2021 congressional hearing. It kicked off a months-long national media effort to frame questions around gain-of-function research and US-taxpayer-funded virus manipulation as a Royal Rumble between Fauci and Senator Rand Paul.

When he testifies or sits for friendly network interviews, Fauci depends on semantics. He relies on the naivety of the interviewer and the audience, employing terminology and definitions he believes only he understands.

But like the ponytailed Chad in Good Will Hunting attempting to flex his big brain, Fauci’s arguments fall apart in front of the initiated.

Last week, Lawrence Tabak, the principal deputy director of the NIH, sent a letter to Congress saying that EcoHealth Alliance failed to report certain aspects of the experimental work it had been conducting in China on bats and bat-borne viruses. Tabak pledged that the NIH and Fauci’s NIAID would take administrative action, but not much more than that.

So Fauci’s absolutist answer from May has proven to be false. At the very least, the doctor needs to answer directly why he chose to deflect questions on gain-of-function research, something his own agency is claiming it had no idea was happening. How could have Fauci have denied back in May something so “categorically” if EcoHealth Alliance, run by Fauci ally Peter Daszak, had failed to report the full extent of their experiments?

When Fauci sat for a cozy Sunday interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, he once again deployed his semantic game on the interviewer. Stephanopoulos framed the revealing letter from Tabak as “critics pouncing”:

“Some critics and analysts have seized on that to say you and others have misled the public about US funding of this so-called gain-of-function research. The NIH says that’s false.”

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When Your Body Is Someone Else’s Haunted House Dara Horn’s brilliant new book Bari Weiss

Posted By on October 27th, 2021

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/when-your-body-is-someone-elses-haunted

Tomorrow marks three years since the massacre at Tree of Life, the most lethal attack on Jews in American history and a watershed event in the lives of so many I love.

I find myself pulled back to that time. To the shock I felt. To the sense I had immediately that the country I thought I lived in was changing in radical ways, even if I didn’t yet fully understand them.

One of the people who helped me make sense of it all — who helped me see that the fate of Jews and the fate of liberty are intertwined; who helped me grasp that an assault on Jews was an assault on the very notion of difference — was Dara Horn.

Dara is a novelist and an essayist whose writings on Jewish history, culture politics has shaped my own thinking. Her new book is called “People Love Dead Jews.”

This is a book deeply relevant to everyone who cares about the future of America, not just the future of American Jews.

………Sometimes your body is someone else’s haunted house. Other people look at you and can only see the dead.

I first discovered this at the age of seventeen in the most trivial of moments, at an academic quiz bowl tournament in Nashville, Tennessee—where, as the only girl from my New Jersey high school, I shared a hotel room with two girls from Mississippi. We were strangers and competitors pretending to be friends. One night we stayed up late chatting about our favorite childhood TV shows, about how we had each believed that Mr. Rogers was personally addressing us through the screen. We laughed together until one girl said, “It’s like Jesus. Even if he didn’t know my name when he was dying on the cross, I still know he loved me, and if he knew my name, he would have loved me too.” The other girl squealed, “I know, right? It’s just like Jesus!” Then the two of them, full of messianic joy, looked at me.

I said nothing—a very loud nothing. The girls waited, uncomfortable, until one braved the silence. “It seems like people up north are much less religious,” she tried. “How often do you go to church?”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Parents Teaching or Government Indoctrination – You Choose by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on October 27th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17892/schools-indoctrination

Every expert who came in indicated that the most important thing in a child’s learning was the presence of a caring adult in that child’s life. We learned that schools most connected to their community were most likely to be successful. And that schools that focused on the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic achieved the best results.
Hillary Clinton once famously said it takes a village to raise a child. It is hard to disagree with that statement on its face until you realize the village Clinton had in mind is the government and not the parents and families who make it up.
While the media may portray this as a battle about COVID mandates, American history, or the teaching of sexuality, those are just the scrimmages that we are witnessing. The real battle is for who the teacher will be in our children’s lives — parents and loving local individuals who know our children’s names, or faceless government bureaucrats hell-bent on indoctrinating our children with their particular worldview.
McAuliffe, Garland, and the NSBA would have you believe that parents are domestic terrorists, but it is time for them to realize how their way of thinking poses a real threat to American rights. Put me in the category of those that believe parents are the ones who should be raising our kids.

The discontent at school board meetings across America is hard to miss. It is showing up in the news and social media feeds that people are watching and reading in their homes. Many people, however, are missing the major driver of this discontent — the major transformation that the White House, National School Boards Association (NSBA) and others are trying to impose on our government schools.

The recent debate statements by Terry McAuliffe, the Democrats’ Virginia gubernatorial candidate, and actions by Attorney General Merrick Garland following a letter from the NSBA clearly signal they believe that government schools are a tool to be used to indoctrinate children. They also believe the force of the federal government should be used to back them up.

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The bigger picture behind the narrow Gantz-NGO controversy  by Ruthie Blum

Posted By on October 26th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-bigger-picture-behind-the-narrow-gantz-ngo-controversy/

When Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Friday that he is listing six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist groups, all hell broke loose on the left. The outcry, which emanated not only from Washington and Brussels, but from the halls of the Knesset in Jerusalem and Muqata in Ramallah, could have been anticipated.
There’s no sacred cow as holy as a self-described “humanitarian organization,” especially when it’s associated with and financed by equally untouchable foundations. Thus, though the impetus behind Gantz’s move was perfectly reasonable, he was promptly attacked, including from within the government of which he is a prominent member.
The groups in question—Al-Haq, Addameer, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees—have, according to Gantz, been “active under the cover of civil-society organizations, but in practice belong to and constitute an arm of the [PFLP] … the main activity of which is the liberation of Palestine and destruction of Israel.”

Most of Gantz’s critics don’t dispute that the Iran-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a terrorist organization. In fact, it is officially designated as such by the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Israel. Naturally, the thugs in the Palestinian Authority have a different view, as they consider the indiscriminate murder of Jews and enemies of other stripes to be a legitimate form of political, ideological and religious protest.

The controversy, then, has focused not on the PFLP, but rather on a number of different issues, each more disingenuous (and revealing) than the next.

Let’s start with U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price’s stern reaction to the news, telling reporters that Israel hadn’t given America “advance warning,” and stating that the administration “will be requesting more information regarding the basis for these designations.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Poland Claws Back Sovereignty from European Union by Soeren Kern

Posted By on October 26th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17876/poland-sovereignty-european-union

Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has ruled that Polish law takes precedence over European Union law.

The power struggle has angered European federalists, who are seeking to turn the 27-member EU into a European superstate — a United States of Europe — and who do not take kindly to those who challenge their authority.

“We ought to be anxious about the gradual transformation of the European Union into an entity that would cease to be an alliance of free, equal and sovereign states, and instead become a single, centrally managed organism, run by institutions deprived of democratic control by the citizens of European countries.” — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, in an October 18 letter to EU leaders.

“Today’s judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal is an appeal to the EU bodies to stop violating the treaties by trying to obtain through usurpation and blackmail competences that have not been obtained in the treaties.” — Polish Deputy Justice Minister Sebastian Kaleta.

“The call for the ‘Polexit’ could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The European Union is committing suicide in its drive for unity.” — Commentator Marco Gallina, Tichys Einblick.

“It is not the truth that is at stake here but the EU seeking to get rid of the inconvenient government in Warsaw. According to the EU, Europe is to be progressive, open, liberal, tolerant and uniform. Anyone who does not like it has no place in the EU.” — Commentator Aleksandra Rybińska, writing for the Polish media group Wpolityce.

Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has ruled that Polish law takes precedence over European Union law. The landmark ruling, which seeks to reassert national sovereignty over certain judicial matters, has called into question the legitimacy of the EU’s supranational legal and political order.

The power struggle has angered European federalists, who are seeking to turn the 27-member EU into a European superstate — a United States of Europe — and who do not take kindly to those who challenge their authority.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Joe from Scranton? More like Bogus Biden His presidency is a slap in the face to the working class Amber Athey

Posted By on October 26th, 2021

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/scranton-joe-bogus-biden-inauthentic-presidency/

During the 2020 election, Joe Biden positioned himself as the Democrat who could win the working class from President Donald Trump. “Joe from Scranton,” as the media affectionately calls him, was bringing normalcy back to the White House.

I wrote last September that this characterization of the Syracuse law grad and lifelong politician was a sham: “Biden has built his career on being dishonest to working-class Americans,” I warned.

Ten months into his presidency, and this has proven true. Trump may love a good show  —”stay tuned!” — but it is Joe Biden who oversees the most inauthentic administration, one that is shockingly divorced from the lives of everyday Americans.

The country is currently facing a massive breakdown in the global supply chain, leading to shortages of goods and increased prices for consumers. My local grocery store boasted large gaps on food shelves Thursday morning. A friend of mine was unable to buy a simple coffee from Starbucks. Others have stumbled across even worse examples of the burgeoning crisis.

Inflation and shortages are no joke for working class families, who spend a larger percentage of their paycheck trying to keep their pantries stocked. The White House’s response, however, has been to deflect from how to fix the breakdown and instead mock Americans who are concerned that Santa may not be stuffing himself down the chimney this Christmas.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki snarked during a briefing this week that the supply chain chaos can be summed up by “the tragedy of the treadmill that’s delayed.” Chief of staff Ron Klain asserted on Twitter that inflation and shortages are “high class problems.” Psaki previously insisted that families aren’t comparing the cost of goods to pre-pandemic prices, saying, “We all understand the American people are not looking at cost-to-cost comparisons from this year to two years ago; they’re looking at cost-to-cost comparisons to their checkbooks from eight months ago or 12 months ago.” She made a patently false claim that gas prices are “well in line” with recent decades.

Then there was the defensiveness with which the administration responded to backlash over transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg taking two months of “paternity leave” with his newly adopted children while ports are backed up with shipping containers. Those who rightfully pointed out that Buttigieg either should have come back to work early or that the White House should have installed a temporary replacement were accused of not supporting paid parental leave or of being homophobic.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obama Gets Wrecked Over Lies About the ‘Culture Wars’ Katie Pavlich

Posted By on October 26th, 2021

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/10/25/obama-gets-wrecked-over-lies-about-virginia-governors-race-n2597954?utm_campaign=inarticle

Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama made a visit to Virginia and campaigned for flailing Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. 

During a campaign stop in Richmond, Obama claimed Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin and conservative media are waging “phony” culture wars. 

Obama’s remarks came shortly after it was revealed a girl was raped at a Loudoun County school by a “gender fluid” boy wearing a skirt. The boy was then quietly moved to another school, where he allegedly assaulted another student. The Loudoun County school board, which has been pushing transgender policies onto children and parents, knew about the situation and covered it up. 

To say the least, Obama’s remarks were unwelcome, out-of-touch and quickly refuted. 

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Schiff, Democrats Pivot Hard on Justice Department Election Interference Americans want, and expect, the Justice Department to operate free of political influence. But it is Democrats who torched the department’s credibility. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on October 26th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/25/schiff-democrats-pivot-hard-on-justice-department-election-interference/

For five years, U.S. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) insisted, without evidence, that the Russians helped Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Schiff, along with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), first seeded the collusion narrative in July 2016—the same month James Comey’s FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane—by falsely claiming Kremlin hackers confiscated thousands of emails off the Democratic National Committee’s server, correspondence damaging to Hillary Clinton.

From that point forward, Schiff leveraged his political power and newfound cable news stardom to perpetuate the lie that the 2016 presidential election was illegitimate.

So it’s beyond ironic that Schiff now sits on the January 6 select committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s latest weapon to annihilate TrumpWorld. After spending every waking minute during Trump’s presidency to conduct what author Lee Smith called The Permanent Coup, Schiff is flipping his coup-plotting script on anyone who questions the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidency.

What’s even more ironic is Schiff and the January 6 committee members now accuse Trump’s former Justice Department officials of attempting to “overturn the results” of the 2020 presidential election. After all, no other government organization aided Schiff more in his bug-eyed crusade to take down Donald Trump than the U.S. Department of Justice. (Comey, it’s helpful to recall, bolstered Schiff’s now-debunked accusation that the Russians hacked the DNC email system.)

Crossfire Hurricane—which involved FBI informants, a garbage “dossier” sourced by a DNC/Clinton campaign operative, and illicit FISA warrants authorized by top Justice Department officials—morphed into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, a two-year legal and political rampage that failed to unearth evidence of collusion but did plenty of damage to innocent people in the interim.

A cast of partisan characters—James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Bruce Ohr, Rod Rosenstein, Kevin Clinesmith, to name just a few—held over from Obama’s Justice Department animated the nonstop siege against Trump and anyone in his orbit.

Even after Trump appointed William Barr attorney general in the spring of 2019, the department continued to play political games. Barr announced in October 2020 that a report from John Durham, the U.S. attorney investigating the corrupt origins of Crossfire Hurricane, would not be released before Election Day.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Killer Cop Gets Off Light Minnesota does the Somali shuffle. By Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on October 26th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/25/killer-cop-gets-off-light/

Back in 2017, Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor gunned down Justine Ruszczyk Damond, who had called 911 to report a possible rape. In 2019, Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in prison. On October 21, Judge Kathryn Quaintance resentenced Noor to just 57 months. These events invite a review of the case. 

The 40-year-old Damond, a dual citizen of Australia and the United States, heard a woman being assaulted and called 911. Officer Noor and partner Matthew Harrity failed to telephone Damond, who called 911 a second time to check on their arrival.

When Damond approached the police car, Noor suddenly drew his weapon and fired. The bullet struck an abdominal artery and the victim, who was to be married within a month, lost so much blood that prompt medical attention might not have saved her.

The Somali-born Noor, who had been on the force for two years, claimed he fired to protect the life of his partner. Three days after the shooting, Harrity claimed he heard a loud bang on the squad car. None of the forensic evidence showed that the victim had even touched the car. 

“The use of force was objectionable, unreasonable and violated police policies and training,” expert witness Derrick Hacker testified during the trial in April 2019. “No reasonable officer would have perceived a threat by somebody coming up to their squad.” Expert witness Timothy Longo told the court that a string of bad decisions led to the shooting death. “I don’t believe they were logical or rational at all,” Longo explained. “This was an unprovoked, violent response.” 

Noor’s attorney, Thomas Plunkett, told the court that what “really caused” the shooting was “the fear that continues to permeate our society. The police are afraid of the people, the people are afraid of the police.” The Minneapolis jury didn’t buy it. 

Six of the 12  jurors, including two women, were people of color. They took less than 12 hours to find Noor guilty of third-degree murder. Damond’s family was satisfied with the verdict, and the city of Minneapolis agreed to a $20 million settlement with the victim’s family. 

Noor’s cousin Goth Ali told reporters the sentence was “an injustice” and charged that Noor “didn’t get a fair trial.” The Somali-American Police Association (SAPA) said in a statement, “The institutional prejudices against people of color, including officers of color, have heavily influenced the verdict of this case.” In this case, the “officer of color” was the shooter, and the victim a person of pallor. 

As it turned out, Noor’s prison term was the average sentence for a cop convicted of a murder committed on duty. In Colorado, James Ashby received a 16-year sentence for killing Jack Jacquez after a confrontation in 2014. Roy Oliver, the Texas officer who shot Jordan Edwards, 15, was sentenced to 15 years.

On February 1, 2021 a Minnesota appeals court upheld Mohamed Noor’s murder conviction. On September 15, the Minnesota Supreme Court tossed Noor’s murder conviction, arguing that, since the officer directed his actions at a specific person, third-degree murder didn’t fit the case. 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Columbia Law Professor Explains Why Public Schools Are Tearing America Apart ‘[T]he schools remain a means by which some Americans force their beliefs on others,’ Philip Hamburger writes. ‘That’s why they are still a source of discord.’By Joy Pullmann

Posted By on October 26th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/25/columbia-law-professor-explains-why-public-schools-are-tearing-america-apart/

Smearing parents fed up with their kids’ schools as “domestic terrorists” seems to be a wild, incendiary charge with little basis in reality. Yet it’s the basis on which the U.S. attorney general has convened an FBI task force to surveil and intimidate parents who object to what their children are being taught, and how they are being treated, with public tax dollars. The organization that colluded with the Justice Department to create the pretext for chilling voters’ speech has backed down, but the FBI threat remains.

School lockdowns have clarified and accelerated the deep, irreconcilable differences among American parents and citizens about how to educate children. Americans want completely different things from their kids’ schools, often opposite things. It’s simply impossible to teach both that there’s a hierarchy of races and that all humans are created equal, let alone to teach “both sides” of other education flashpoints, such as whether to teach social justice or actual math in math class. Schools have to choose.

K-12 schools are largely choosing the political establishment over the wishes of the people who elect them and provide their children as the pretext for schools’ public funding. The political establishment that benefits from public schools’ monopoly on teaching future voters what to think is being increasingly direct about this arrangement.

In 1996, Hillary Clinton told Americans “it takes a village” to raise a child. That was the soft sell. Today, we’re getting the hard sell: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” said Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe in a September debate.

As Democrats were forcing millions of American children to stay home for yet another school year while their international peers were safely learning in person, a Harvard University conference suggested banning at-home education. One of its organizers, a Harvard Law professor complained that homeschooling is “a realm of near-absolute parental power. . . . inconsistent with a proper understanding of the human rights of children.”