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How the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict could impact Israel’s regional strategic landscape: By Sean Savage

Posted By on October 15th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/how-the-armenian-azerbaijani-conflict-could-impact-israels-regio

Over the last several weeks, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in an escalating conflict centered around a decades-long dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory but has illegally occupied by Armenia since their first war ended in 1994.

While this conflict seemingly revolves around a dispute between two small Caucasus countries, it has larger regional and even global implications.

While the conflict in the Caucasus does not directly threaten Israel, its long-standing close ties with Azerbaijan and fledgling relations with Armenia—coupled with the larger geopolitical landscape of the region involving heavyweights Turkey, Russia and Iran—put the Jewish state on high alert for developments.

“Israel and Azerbaijan maintain a strategic alliance. It is not just about arms sales or oil, but a very deep strategic cooperation,” Brenda Shaffer, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, told JNS.

“Azerbaijan’s long-term open friendship with Israel has helped other Muslim-majority states establish open cooperation with Israel and even contributed to the current blossoming of ties between Israel and several Muslim-majority states, like the UAE.”

She said that “Azerbaijan, despite bordering Iran, was not afraid to openly cooperate with Israel over the years. This showed other Muslim majority states that they can, without worrying about repercussions from Iran or other states, establish open cooperation with Israel.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s Next Move: Arms Transfers to South America? by Joseph M. Humire

Posted By on October 15th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16643/iran-weapons-south-america

In August, [Colombia’s] President Ivan Duque… claimed that the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela is looking to acquire medium-to-long-range missiles from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For two decades, Iran has built a covert procurement and acquisition network in Latin America through joint military projects with Venezuela. The network is seemingly aimed at acquiring prohibited parts, minerals, metals, and technology for Iran’s strategic weapons programs, banned by the UN arms embargo… While gasoline is needed in Venezuela, the fuel shipments from Iran are likely an excuse to operationalize its once latent IRGC network in the country.

With the Bolivian election less than a week away… and on the same date as the expiration of the UN arms embargo — October 18 — there is a chance that Iran could restart its strategic cooperation with Bolivia if Morales’ political party, the MAS, returns to power.

For casual observers, the ramped-up presence in Venezuela… will seem as if Iran’s recent activities are a product of “maximum pressure” against Iran and Venezuela. To informed analysts, however, it is clear that Iran has gradually built up the IRGC’s presence and capabilities in the region for almost 20 years — while using commercial and energy contracts, military-industrial cooperation, high-technology transfers, and other Iranian niche industries to cover its tracks.

Come October 18, the Iran-Latin America problem may become more complex if any of the three situations — lifting the UN arms embargo, a Morales-MAS electoral victory in Bolivia, or a missile transfer to Maduro in Venezuela — comes to pass.

By the end of October, the security landscape in South America could change, with the Islamic Republic of Iran setting up arms sales in South America, from Venezuela to Bolivia. But first, any of these three things must happen:

The United Nations would have to ignore its security council resolutions and effectively let the decades-old Iran arms embargo expire on October 18.
Evo Morales’ political party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia would have to win the presidential elections, set for the same date (October 18).
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro regime would need to initiate a potential weapons transfer from Tehran, as reported in late August by Colombian President Ivan Duque.

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Is Dr. Iman Foroutan Iran’s rising star? Foroutan has taken upon himself to end the brutal mullah-led Iranian regime. He has the support of many Iranians the world over. Amil Imani

Posted By on October 15th, 2020

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/289142

It is said that “powerlessness frustrates and absolute powerlessness frustrates absolutely; absolute frustration is a dangerous emotion to run a world with.”

Sometimes I wonder why I am so restless, why I cannot cease thinking! It seems like the world we live in reveals to us incessantly, at certain moments or in certain circumstances, just how little we are and how vast the universe is. This world of ours is very complex. The world we live in is a world of many brutal voices. It is a world of heavy blows and delirious trances, but it is the only world that we know.

Everyone knows that life is too short and no one lives forever. We all know that the situation in Iran is dire and at any moment this brutal regime could collapse. Although Iran is saturated with great minds and leaders who could navigate the ship to safety, as they have done for the past 2,500 years, society invents its own heroes who will rise to the occasion. Heroes appear when circumstances call upon them. Heroes are those extraordinary people who make sacrifices and become agents of historical and social change.

Neither President Trump, nor Dr. Foroutan was obligated to engage, endanger, and inconvenience their lives. But, perhaps they both were predestined to be the agents of change. It would be fantastic to see a meeting between these two men, a landmark step towards regime change in Iran.

For those who have not heard of this brave son of Iran, it is time for you to get to know him. He has the support of many Iranians both in Iran and abroad.

Dr. Iman Foroutan is an Iranian patriot who has selflessly dedicated his life to free his beloved homeland from the hands of tyrannical butchers: The Mullahs of Iran. For the past twenty-one years, each and every day, Iman has labored tirelessly, with utmost courage, and integrity in the defense of liberty, freedom and for the rights of Iranians inside Iran. He hopes more and more people will join him in this powerful movement to end the rule of the Islamic regime.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Hunter Emails By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on October 15th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/the-hunter-emails-report/

According to a 2015 email, then–vice president Joe Biden met with a top executive at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that paid Biden’s son, Hunter, $50,000 a month to sit on its board. Earlier, the Burisma executive had asked Hunter to use his influence to quell Ukrainian government officials who were trying to extort the company. Months later, Vice President Biden coerced the Ukrainian government into firing a prosecutor who says he was gearing up an investigation of Burisma.

The evidence that Vice President Biden gave access to the company that was paying his son is disputed. It comes from emails stored on the hard drive of a laptop computer that appears to be Hunter Biden’s. The emails were disclosed in a report by the New York Post.

The Post was alerted to the hard drive’s existence by Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser. The paper received a copy of the hard drive from Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. A Biden spokesman claims that, according to Biden’s official schedule, he never met with the Burisma official. Obviously, that does not prove that the meeting did not happen, any more than the email, by itself and without more authentication, proves beyond a doubt that it did happen.

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Twitter and Facebook’s Shameful Repression of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden Story

Posted By on October 15th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/twitter-and-facebooks-shameful-repression-of-the-new-york-posts-hunter-biden-story/

This morning, Andy Stone, Facebook’s policy communications manager (and, per his bio, a former staffer for Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the House Majority PAC), announced that the social-media giant would begin “reducing” the “distribution” of a New York Post investigation into emails purporting that Joe Biden met with a top executive from the Ukrainian natural-gas firm Burisma Holdings at the behest of his son Hunter Biden.

Bad idea.

In one of the emails reported by the Post, a Burisma executive named Vadym Pozharskyi thanks Hunter for inviting him to Washington to meet with the vice president in 2015.

If the Post report is to be believed, the Biden-Burisma meeting occurred less than a year before the vice president pressured Ukrainian officials to fire Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor investigating the company that was paying Hunter $50,000 per month for his alleged expertise. That is, by any journalistic standard, newsworthy.

Instead of simply asking pertinent questions, or debunking the Post’s reporting, a media blackout was initiated. A number of well-known journalists warned colleagues and their sizable social-media audiences not to share the story.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Merriam-Webster Changes Definition of ‘Sexual Preference’ Seemingly Overnight By Matt Margolis

Posted By on October 14th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/10/14/merriam-webster-changes-definition-of-sexual-preference-seemingly-overnight-n1051219

On Tuesday, Judge Amy Coney Barrett told Senator Dianne Feinstein that she “never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference and would not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference.” Senator Mazie Hirono, in addition to asking Judge Barrett if she’s sexually assaulted anyone before, harped on Barrett’s use of the phrase, claiming it to be outdated and offensive.

The liberal media quickly pounced on Barrett’s use of the allegedly offensive term. As of this writing, there are now over 20,000 news stories about it.

While we expect Democrats and the liberal media to accuse Barrett of bigotry for using this longstanding innocent term (while also ignoring Democrats’ repeated use of it in the recent past) what is actually quite disappointing is to see the way Merriam-Webster, which has been publishing dictionaries since the 1800s, sprung to action to give credence to these attacks by literally redefining the term, seemingly overnight.

If you visit their website and search for the definition of “preference,” at the very bottom of the definition it reads “5. offensive, see usage paragraph below : ORIENTATION sense 2b // sexual preference,” and claims “The term preference as used to refer to sexual orientation is widely considered offensive in its implied suggestion that a person can choose who they are sexually or romantically attracted to.”

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Will Amazon Suppress the True Michael Brown Story? Jason L. Riley

Posted By on October 14th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-amazon-suppress-the-true-michael-brown-story-11602628176?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

August was the sixth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, the black teenager who was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. The incident, and the nationwide coverage it attracted, marked the beginning of a period of mass protests against police, which culminated (let’s hope) after the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis this May.

The fashionable explanation for what happened to Brown, Floyd and others—such as Freddie Gray in 2015 and Philando Castile in 2016—is so-called systemic racism. The activist left and the mainstream media insist that law enforcement targeted these men because they were black—and that if they weren’t black, they would still be alive. The truth is more complicated and less politically correct, and it’s the subject of an engrossing new documentary that is scheduled to premiere Oct. 16.

The film, titled “What Killed Michael Brown?,” is written and narrated by the noted race scholar Shelby Steele and directed by his son, Eli Steele. Readers of these pages probably know the elder Mr. Steele through his best-selling books and occasional Journal op-eds. But earlier in his career, Mr. Steele also won acclaim for his work in television. In 1990 he co-wrote and produced “Seven Days in Bensonhurst,” an Emmy-winning documentary about Yusef Hawkins, the black teenager from Brooklyn who was fatally shot in 1989 after he and some friends were attacked by a white mob.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Except For Locked-Down Blue States, America’s Economic Recovery From COVID-19 Is Amazingly Strong By Tom Blumer

Posted By on October 14th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/14/except-for-locked-down-blue-states-americas-economic-recovery-from-covid-19-is-amazingly-strong/

The nation’s corporate media have mostly downplayed or ignored the U.S. economy’s remarkable performance following the COVID-19 lockdowns earlier this year. They have completely ignored how pandemic-related economic restrictions in many states have prevented the ongoing recovery from being even stronger.

In just five months, the unemployment rate has fallen by 45 percent from its April peak of 14.7 percent, and the economy has also regained just over half of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April. This is a far better performance than most economists expected. Media outlets far and wide, and even the Congressional Budget Office, originally predicted that it would take ten years for the economy to fully recover.

The government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) told us on Oct. 2 that the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in September was 7.9 percent (down from 8.4 percent in August), and that the economy added 661,000 jobs during the month.

Both CNBC and the Associated Press emphasized that September’s job additions were a sharp drop from the nearly 1.5 million jobs added in August. Both outlets failed to tell readers how volatile government hiring affected these results.

In August, 1.02 million jobs were added in the private sector while government employment increased by 467,000. September saw an increase of 877,000 jobs in the private sector and 216,000 jobs lost in government, primarily in local education. Coming in just 14 percent lower than August, September’s private-sector result was hardly the major “loss of momentum” CNBC and the AP claimed.

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Legacy Media Fall Silent On Bombshell Report Showing Joe Biden Lied About Knowledge Of Son’s Foreign Business By Tristan Justice

Posted By on October 14th, 2020

http://Legacy Media Fall Silent On Bombshell Report Showing Joe Biden Lied About Knowledge Of Son’s Foreign Business By Tristan Justice

Any time a legacy paper drops what they call a “bombshell” report on President Donald Trump, one can safely bet it will end up on the front page of every outlet immediately upon publication.

It happened with the Woodward tapes, where the Watergate journalist uncovered comments the president had been making for months. It happened with a report in the Atlantic, where the magazine published a hit piece based solely on anonymous sources making claims only to be contradicted by more than a dozen current and former White House staff, including fired National Security Advisor John Bolton. And it happened with every minor new detail to emerge in the mainstream media’s Russiagate narrative seeking to indict the president as a Russian agent.

When the New York Post dropped an actual bombshell report on Wednesday morning however, exposing that 2020 Democratic presidential nominee repeatedly lied about what he knew of his son’s potentially criminal overseas business activity, legacy outlets so eager to publish incriminating content on the Trump White House have gone silent.

Emails obtained by the Post show correspondence between Hunter Biden and Vadym Pozharskyi, a Ukrainian advisor to Biden’s energy firm Burisma show that contrary to Joe Biden’s claims that he never talked business with his son “or with anyone else,” the vice president at the time was indeed introduced to Pozharskyi by Hunter. Hunter Biden was raking in upwards of $50,000 a month in excess compensation for serving on the board of Burisma while his father served as the “public face” of White House policy towards Ukraine.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

In Minneapolis, Rage And Fear Have Hobbled A Great American City By John Daniel Davidson

Posted By on October 14th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/14/in-minneapolis-rage-and-fear-have-hobbled-a-great-american-city/

The one-two punch of riots over George Floyd’s death and shutdowns over the pandemic have taken a terrible toll on the City of Lakes.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The intersection in south Minneapolis where George Floyd died in police custody on May 25 has become a quasi-religious shrine. It is a shrine not just to Floyd, who is honored here as if he were a saint or a martyr, but to the political power of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ascendency of the radical left in this city.

The intersection and the neighborhood around it have been “occupied” for months now. To get to the memorial—or “George Square,” as it’s now called—you must approach on foot. For a block in every direction, the streets are closed to traffic, barricaded by concrete roadblocks and makeshift chevaux de frise. Behind the roadblocks, plywood shields are stacked up next to a tent and an outhouse.

A young man in a pink sweater and green hair greets me as I approach. He informs me that it is Indigenous Peoples Day (formerly Columbus Day), and that there is a healing circle for indigenous peoples underway at the intersection next to the memorial. I am not allowed to take pictures of them, he says. By what authority he orders me not to take pictures, he doesn’t say. So I take pictures.

The memorial itself is a 15-foot black fist erected in the middle of the intersection of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, festooned roundabout with flowers and signs and graffiti and flags. Every conceivable surface, from the streets and sidewalks and light poles to the buildings and bus shelters and the abandoned Speedway gas station on the corner, is covered in graffiti and posters and overlapping murals.